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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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As delicious as the irony of a proGG journo at a proGG site getting punished for their ethical misconduct may be, I'm not going to cheer for a letter that accuses any writer of being biased.

There's bias and then there's pursuing an agenda. The latter is what the accusation is.

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Furthermore news, as in actual "here's what is happening," should be decoupled from bias anyway. Just facts should be reported. Opinion pieces on that news are to be kept separate.

 

Deadpan, you're essentially giving Fox News (the organization, I'm not recognizing them as a news source) the A-OK on how they operate.

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"Several facts point to the latter scenario:

 

[...]

 

- As we pointed out in our response to your original (incomplete) inquiry, the Author appears to have been biased due to previous involvements with known detractors of CIG, its executives, and the project Star Citizen."

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Furthermore news, as in actual "here's what is happening," should be decoupled from bias anyway. Just facts should be reported. Opinion pieces on that news are to be kept separate.

 

Deadpan, you're essentially giving Fox News (the organization, I'm not recognizing them as a news source) the A-OK on how they operate.

 

News is never not biased. You cannot keep opinion out of it entirely, and the dogmatic demand that it has to be anyway is a major GG talking point.

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Please don't misunderstand my intent here. I do not wish to defend a chain of articles that, starting with the follow-up to the original, merely inconsequential story, was clearly mishandled. My intent is for us not to become our ideological enemies in talking about our ideological enemies, and not to simplify and thus mischaracterize complex situations simply because now is a time where it it convenient for us to do so.

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I get behind Deadpan's reasoning. Take, for example, Jim Sterling and his constant rambling about Konami (which I like). It's not exactly founded on journalist principles, it's often hearsay from former 'disgruntled' employees and Sterling probably doesn't ask Konami for comment before publication. So that's fairly similar to what the Escapist did, and we will probably all agree that Sterling doesn't get a free pass just because he's "a youtuber".

 

And let's not forget that before the Escapist imbibed the mud from gamergate's ethics barrel bottom, the least ethical video game publication on the net seemed to always be kotaku. At least that's how it appeared to me.

 

However, the ethics breaches pile up in this particular case. Hiring gamergaters with the sole qualification of being a gamergater is certofuckainly among them, but let's not go there for a moment. There is definitely collusion on the side of the disgruntled ex-employees. I'd say there's pretty solid reason to investigate collusion between Fogarty and Smart. I'd also say there's solid reason for Roberts to assume that Fogarty pesters him from an anonymous twitter account in parallel to her official Escapist efforts. The article repeats the vilest possible accusations, including especially racist hiring and other highly illegal proceedings (e.g. generous private use of company funds – something probably only Roberts would know), giving CIG hours to react, then misplacing an email that CIG had explicitly announced. Solid reason for CIG to assume that Fogarty deals with 'hot potato' info peddled to several publications. And the glassdoor reviews conveniently created days before the publication of the article... sorry, that IS a coordinated effort in any case, and needs to be investigated.

 

No kotaku can match this level of corruption.

 

The agenda here is not the truth, but reputation and therewith financial damage to CIG.

 

If a court of law can actually find out the truth behind those Fogarty articles, Roberts should definitely sue.

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News is never not biased. You cannot keep opinion out of it entirely, and the dogmatic demand that it has to be anyway is a major GG talking point.

There's a difference between news and other kinds of published writings. GG's talking point extends to all forms of writing, which is absurd.

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I'd draw a comparison between this and, say, the Kotaku article on the collapse of Silicon Knights, which is fairly similar as a mostly one-sided article about bad behaviour at a studio surviving mostly on goodwill from the playerbase.

It doesn't have the same circumstances surrounding this article's creation though. That Kotaku article came out of nowhere, not sparked by any ongoing controversy. Nobody was in a hurry to get some negative thing out there. On top of that, Silicon Knights and its leads never made any statement (as far as I remember) about the article or any of its claims. Sure, that may not mean anything necessarily, but silence is an option taken (see my post RE: "No comment at this time").

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It seems to me like the difference between the Star Citizen article and others is that SC was accused of violating federal law without proof. Certainly the poor management of Silicon Knights, and the alleged devaluing of employees by Konami aren't really defensible, but in those cases I don't think any specific allegations were made of laws being broken.

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It seems to me like the difference between the Star Citizen article and others is that SC was accused of violating federal law without proof. Certainly the poor management of Silicon Knights, and the alleged devaluing of employees by Konami aren't really defensible, but in those cases I don't think any specific allegations were made of laws being broken.

That's true. The stakes are higher than enthusiast opinion; there's accusations that threaten government agencies from acting.

 

I mean from that much alone it warrants a lawsuit in my opinion, as much as I hate invoking those as an option.

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On top of that, Silicon Knights and its leads never made any statement (as far as I remember) about the article or any of its claims. Sure, that may not mean anything necessarily, but silence is an option taken (see my post RE: "No comment at this time").

 

A little bit off topic (maybe), but Denis Dyack did respond when that silence bit him in the butt pretty hard during his next venture at Precursor Games; to get that Shadow of the Eternals game kickstarted (it failed). This is the video:

 

 

And in response to that video, this counter-response article from Kotaku. Both are pretty interesting.

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A post from the Escapist forums that I just HAVE to show y'all.

 

Jokes aside, this is serious. I'm an expert on identity cards and I'd just like to make it clear that the card being shown by the community manager in the photo above is a mocked-up image created via green screen technology.

 

Entering this debate is not something I do lightly but conscience dictates.

 

Therefore I have deconstructed the image using advanced algorithms and can tell you that the original photo shows an HiD Q23 card. What is most interesting is that when I ran the numbers on the card, it came up as one of the swipe cards used at WTC building seven.

 

For real.

 

Understand this is serious business.

 

Especially when you put this together with the other data gathered by this intrepid reporter and posters in this thread, it's clear that the staff of CIG are in fact the same 'extras' used to simulate victims of terror that were used by the Bush administration in the false flag operation on 9/11.

 

Lastly, If you analyse the IMDB profile of Sandi Gardner you can see there are clear stegographical messages that she is passing on to her paymasters in the New World Order.

 

Can this be a coincidence?

 

Absolutely not.

 

Never before has a conspiracy of this magntitude been unleashed on the video games community.

 

This is a direct attack on the truth-sayers of Gamer Gate, a progressive false flag exercise to strike at the heart of liberty.

 

Moving forwards, it's important people mobilise behind this story.

 

Even if it doesn't gain traction in mainstream journalism, it is a story that cannot be entirely hidden.

 

Lives are at stake, people.

 

This is just the sharp end of the wedge.

 

Sooner or later the millions of dollars poured into this project in good faith will be used to wind back our freedoms in the pursuit of the New World Order.

 

This is just a grand marketing ploy on an amazing scale.

 

Ethics, people, it's about ethics!

 

Ethics in game design and game journalism.

 

Losing sight of this basically allows the terrorists to 'win'.

 

Be resolute in pursuing truth here.

 

Eagle-eyed in studying our enemy.

 

Analyse the mistakes he is making and take note of every misstep.

 

Mark it all down, so we know who to strike when the moment comes.

 

Stand strong, fellow gamers!

 

(Bonus: Read the first letter of every new line)

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When people post

 

like this

 

it must mean

 

that every word

 

is so important.

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https://popehat.com/2015/10/04/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-threaten-lawsuits/
 

Anyway, hearing of crowdfunder complaints about the awaited Star Citizen, [Derek] Smart criticized it. He invoked his vast experience in having produced the Howard The Duck, the Edsel, the New Coke of space sims, a monstrosity called Battlecruiser 3000AD, which is distinguishable from a computer virus in that it was promoted more douchilly. When Star Citizens' developers failed to respond with the adulation to which he is entitled under natural law, Smart characteristically waded in with extravagant and self-promoting lawsuit threats. Smart styled himself a crusading consumer advocate, which would be an apt label if Ralph Nader had appeared before Congress and said "Mr. Chairman, these vehicles are unsafe at any speed. And now, I invite Congress to admire my balls. RELEASE THE LAWYERS."


Controversy and flamboyant figures mean clicks, and gaming-website The Escapist wanted some of that action. They published a hit piece portraying Cloud Imperium Games (developers of Star Citizen) as awful employers driving a doomed project, and sourced it to both unnamed and anonymous sources.

 
In this rather amusing evaluation of the Escapist situation, Ken White comes to the conclusion that CIG should have kept their mouths firmly shut before bringing in the lawyers.

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For some reason, Keefer has decided to risk a lawsuit from CIG. A slight update to the original article, not in Keefer's tone, but rather sullen Fogarty rhetoric, informs us that the Escapist will not take down the article.
 

The Escapist, notwithstanding Cloud Imperium Games' notice and posting, stands by its coverage of Star Citizen and intends to continue to investigate the developing story. Since publishing our original stories, we have been contacted by, and are currently interviewing, additional sources corroborating a variety of the reported allegations. Additionally, if Mr. Roberts' offer for The Escapist to "meet the developers making the game and see how we're building one of the most ambitious PC games first hand" remains open, we take the opportunity to accept such invitation so as to hopefully provide the public with sufficient information and opportunity to vet such sources' allegations and claims for themselves. We have also communicated the foregoing directly to Cloud Imperium Games.

 
I want to read that email! Well, maybe I will because CIG is in a publishing mood. :P
 
The article remains in its previous form, as if nothing at all was wrong with it. The personal attacks on Gardiner and Roberts, still in there. All the litigable accusations of racism or misappropriation of company funds, still in there. All the stuff to which none of their sources could have said anything sensible, especially the financial status of the company, still in there. All the statements from the highly questionable source with the "Cloud Imperium Games ID with the name blacked out", still in there. All the statements that sound copied directly from glassdoor, right there.
 
The Escapist still searches and interviews sources that corroborate allegations – instead of occasionally, y'know, invalidate them. Which is good journalistic practice of course, to just fill a barrel with allegations which no one even could invalidate because none of the sources speaks with any authority to the topics at hand.
 
It seems like CIG won't direct their lawsuit at what they call "the kid", but rather at Keefer himself. Which is OK, no need to ruin Fogarty's life. She was hired for rabble rousing, and she went at it with exactly the kind of naïvety her employer asked of her. Yesterday, she rode twitter for a fall, especially concerning the mysterious ID card, which she may or may not have ever seen in person. It doesn't help that she deleted some of her tweets in the meantime. This whole fiasco might be the warning shot she so desperately needs.

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I listened to their podcast, despite it being utterly repugnant for their smugness and one guy's declared antagonistic attitude to CIG. They claim to have additional, stronger material  that was not included in the article because it would identify the sources. It is possible that they haven't backed down because they have sufficient evidence to support a court case. 

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I listened to their podcast, despite it being utterly repugnant for their smugness and one guy's declared antagonistic attitude to CIG. They claim to have additional, stronger material  that was not included in the article because it would identify the sources. It is possible that they haven't backed down because they have sufficient evidence to support a court case. 

I wouldn't count on that. You'd be surprised how stupid people can get. My prediction is that over the next year we'll be getting news about court documents being filed to take this to a lawsuit trial, and the Escapist will boast about their confidence at first, but the longer it goes on they'll get increasingly silent. Then, one day, we'll hear about an out of court settlement, the article will be taken down, apologies made, and then... that's it.

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Yeah, anytime someone brags about having "proof" but they can't share it for whatever reason, the vast majority of the time they are full of complete shit. 

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