I understand the staff's sentiment regarding harassment and death threats, etc. I feel anyone who engages in this kind of mean spirited behavior is doing a disservice to the ethics debate. I also think that the fact this entire ordeal was started by a biased and angry (even if justifiably angry) ex-boyfriend who, by most accounts, was cheated on in a very nasty way, is reason enough for people to take everything he presented with a grain of salt. However, much like often happens in political scandals, this entire thing became relevant when the media outlets who had staff member involved, directly or indirectly, started actively trying to dismiss the whole discussion without actually demonstrating any transparency or accountability.
I read the story about the failed Game Jam TV show that Zoe Quinn participated in when it first was covered by the gaming press. Not a single one of the pieces I read gave a chance for the producer, who was accused of being offensive towards women, a chance to defend himself. Most of them immediately jumped at his throat with a level of aggressiveness uncommon in proper journalism. As a journalist myself, having worked in actual politics coverage for years, I am aware that you should never take sides when covering a story, even when it's apparently obvious that one side is right and the other is wrong. When a journalist does take sides while reporting, he or she is failing at their job.
Gaming journalism used to be an arm of PR. In the last decade, it's been moving from being a marketing tool to being a proper type of coverage, akin to what has existed for a long time in the field of arts and culture. However, the people who work at and lead gaming media outlets seem mostly unprepared to deal with the reality of their changing position. It is no longer acceptable for gaming journalism to be completely irresponsible about what they write. This is not a choice to be taken, it's a fact to be recognized.
When an outlet like Kotaku writes a click-bait piece about the art style in Dragon's Crown, associating the art direction with misogyny and gender discrimination, they are making a disservice to anyone who truly believes that gender equality is something we should all work to achieve. It was irresponsible and ignorant, much like it would be irresponsible and ignorant to slant a film as racist after seeing only a still frame. "Look, that film has a burning cross in it, so it must be racist. Oh, wait. It's Mississippi Burning. My bad!"
Once a media coverage becomes relevant, it has to uphold itself to standards. Otherwise, the audience will revolt. Remember the story about the NYT writer Judith Miller, who wrote many pieces about the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq leading up to the invasion? She has since left the NYT and went on to work for a Republican think tank. Her work was so biased and irresponsible, the NYT had to issue a public apology. You are probably thinking this stuff is way more serious than videogames will ever be. Well, guess again!
Why did the NYT issue that apology? Why did they fire Judith Miller? To save face, one might say. But that is exactly what gaming media should have done in face of the ethics accusations. Publishing a series of articles about the death of the gamer identity simultaneously in many different outlets, all in the same week, as a response to the #GamerGate arise, was the stupidest thing they could have done. The message sent was "Yes, there is bias and we stand by it" I understand you might not think this is the case and that those articles had the best of intentions, but it is how it's perceived from the outside looking in. If Kotaku and all the other involved media outlets had instead addressed the story in a journalistic way, made a mea culpa and possibly even fired someone for truly behaving inappropriately towards a source, there would likely be no movement at all. The nut cases would be screaming alone, like they already did before this whole mess started.
This is the last paragraph, I swear. What are game developers to gaming journalists? Friends? Co-workers? Colleagues? Nope. They are sources. Every journalist has a relationship with his or her sources. Some sources become friends, some become acquaintances, some just stay sources forever. A young journalist/blogger has a romantic, possibly extramarital relationship with a young indie developer. Is this allowed? Sure it is. It's their life, they can do whatever they want with it, including cheating. However, when their lives are exposed in the internet, and bias in his coverage of her work is implied, the gaming media can't pretend nothing is happening. There is a story to be covered, questions to be answered. Ignoring the story will produce a reaction. Giving an unsatisfying response will produce a reaction. We live in internet times, where nothing goes away and nothing can be hidden for too long unless it's too complicated to be screamed out in 140 characters. I think most gaming websites have not really spent much time thinking about crisis management and general PR stuff. They should start now, because if anything positive can be taken away from this mess, it's the realization that gaming journalism has become relevant, and it needs to deal with it's relevancy with maturity and rationality.
PS: I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize if anything written here sounds offensive to someone or excessive in any way. It is not my intention. I'm a big fan of the website, although I'm not a subscriber, and I wish you all the best of luck.
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