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Lozos
United States36 Posts
On January 17 2013 02:24 Crashburn wrote:He should not care about the progression or regression of e-sports, even. I don't agree with this. I don't know Slasher too much, but I'm assuming he's an e-sports journalist. If e-sports goes down the tubes, he needs to find another job just like if baseball were to somehow disappear tomorrow, you'd be out of a job too. If e-sports grows, then he grows. | ||
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L3g3nd_
New Zealand10461 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:13 Lozos wrote: I don't agree with this. I don't know Slasher too much, but I'm assuming he's an e-sports journalist. If e-sports goes down the tubes, he needs to find another job just like if baseball were to somehow disappear tomorrow, you'd be out of a job too. If e-sports grows, then he grows. yeahp basically. more sc2 fans means more views for his articles and interviews. it is not his duty to withold information or to help grow Sc2, but is in his best interest to help grow it. Of course he doesnt have to, thats been stated and restated, but itd be foolish to bite the hand that feeds you | ||
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Grimmyman123
Canada939 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:08 jmbthirteen wrote: Also, about Alex's rant about how what Slasher does only helps himself, isn't what EG wants only helps EG? Thats the point of business right? Last I checked, Slasher needs to help himself too. Journalism in esports isn't in a great place either, yet it is absolutely a necessary function of esports. I can understand if you do not grasp the concept of advertising and media relation economics. Basically, for the BEST benefit to ALL parties, the main source or team releases first, and the journalists release second, shortly after the main source. Both put out a good product or content for maximum effect. Both ride the wave. For maxmimum effect, it only works one way. | ||
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EG.lectR
United States617 Posts
This assumes that information is always between one party or parties which are under the same level of control. That is not the case within e-sports and there is no body which monitors that information or those conversations. Teams talk freely, players talk freely, and there are too many people involved in normal transactions [in this case, team transactions] to claim that one party can control it all and you cannot, as one entity, change that at this time. | ||
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Sunfish
Austria162 Posts
1) Great piece, though it is ultimately a brand name, dressed up version of the general Reddit consensus. 2) I lol'd at the Harmsworth bit. When defending journalism, I've always used George Orwell's nearly identical quote "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." 3) Obviously I'm biased because I work for EG, but I do more or less agree with this piece. Still, Tom Junod (a brilliant journalist writing mostly for Esquire) told me once that the difference between real journalism and the middle school gossip queen is that a true journalist understands when to withhold information. Sometimes, I think Slasher could use a little more judgement on this count. Now before you flame me... Consider, for example, the case of Wikileaks. Now, I am all for transparency in government, but I also understand that government (or any institution for that matter) requires a certain amount of discretion to run effectively. You can try to argue this point, but you will be wrong -- this is a basic and reasonable claim of modern political science. Some of the cables that were released, needed to be released, because they exposed various atrocities committed in our American name that we should be aware of. Something like "Collateral Murder" would fall under this heading. But others, like the private observations of foreign diplomats by state department officials, should have *never* been released, because they only serve to damage the American government, while providing no positive benefit for anyone. Expanding this line of thought, the fundamental issue here is that releasing certain bits of information, regardless of how it was leaked, damages an institution with no potential benefit. And this is when journalists start to look like middle school gossip queens. Though the leaks are an (if not the) essential issue of this discussion, Alex is right to point out that these kind of actions do nothing to help eSports. If Slasher was reporting on, say, a sketchy player trade, we have a right to know so that we can hold the offending institutions accountable. Slasher just stealing EG's thunder might forward his career and feed the rumor mill, but damages eSports as a whole. The call here ultimately comes down to judgement. And this is where I think Jibba's post is invaluable to this discussion: "I think part of the problem with this is that while you're comparing actions, you're not comparing contexts." Jibba here refers to OP's example of the Cliff Lee trade, which as he rightly notes, did not cause a furor. But it's clear from Alex's words that the leak of Jaedong that Slasher's actions *were* bad for EG. Could Slasher have known that? Probably, he seems like a pretty intelligent guy. But now he knows for the future, and if I were him, I would start making better judgement calls about what should be released and what shouldn't. Reporting every rumor he (or any journalist) gets is simply not the proper course of action. Again, judgement is the difference between being Bob Woodward or the middle school gossip queen. | ||
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TORTOISE
United States515 Posts
Im glad the feedback has been unanimously "garfeild fucked up". | ||
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jmbthirteen
United States10734 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:17 Grimmyman123 wrote: I can understand if you do not grasp the concept of advertising and media relation economics. Basically, for the BEST benefit to ALL parties, the main source or team releases first, and the journalists release second, shortly after the main source. Both put out a good product or content for maximum effect. Both ride the wave. For maxmimum effect, it only works one way. if thats best, then why does no other industry work this way? esports needs to adapt | ||
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rQdjay
United States22 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:08 jmbthirteen wrote: Also, about Alex's rant about how what Slasher does only helps himself, isn't what EG wants only helps EG? Thats the point of business right? Last I checked, Slasher needs to help himself too. Journalism in esports isn't in a great place either, yet it is absolutely a necessary function of esports. I disagree. EG making some sort of official announcement to the community ie through a hype video or webpage like how they did for jaedong, builds excitement throughout the community. I forgot who said it on Inside the Game, whether it was Incontrol or Alex, but the fact is that there are less views and less excitement building around the announcement, which leads to a portion of the community who simply does not care about the official announcement. Obviously Slasher is just doing his job, no one can argue against that point, but that does not mean he has to lessen the hype the entire community feels just because he just wants a couple thousand more hits on his article. Him withholding information for longer would give him time to release better quality articles, build better relationships with teams and players, and be better for the community by making more hype and adding to the excitement for eSports. And for the people that argue that they want the news a couple of days before, I think that is a terrible argument as again it is only lessening the excitement for the whole community. | ||
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jmbthirteen
United States10734 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:18 EG.lectR wrote: "Ultimately, EG's issue with Breslau's reporting is their fault. If they want information used the way they want it to be used, they need to withhold that information as they see fit, which is certainly their right." This assumes that information is always between one party or parties which are under the same level of control. That is not the case within e-sports and there is no body which monitors that information or those conversations. Teams talk freely, players talk freely, and there are too many people involved in normal transactions [in this case, team transactions] to claim that one party can control it all and you cannot, as one entity, change that at this time. so instead you try and control the journalists, because thats the quick and easy fix at the moment.... | ||
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DrakeFZX3
United States925 Posts
EG's bottomline should not be the concern of Slasher or any other journalist whatsoever. | ||
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vesicular
United States1310 Posts
On January 17 2013 04:02 Jibba wrote: Journalism has a lot of push and pull to it, and if you're not in the position of power, you have to be able to compromise to get what you want in the future. That's just the nature of it. :/ It's not the difference in industries per se. It's the differences in clout, which you need to leverage in order to be a journalist. The job isn't just reporting news, it's also getting access to it. I was a columnist for Gannett News (they own USA Today among many other media outlets) in the early to mid 1990's. While you are correct that getting access to the news is the biggest challenge, and biting the hand that feeds you is not always the best way to go about it, what strikes me in the esports industry is the fact that most of the people involved are young. We are not talking about corporate suits with years of experience massaging their statements (and non-statements) to the press. We are basically talking about kids who willfully discuss almost anything in a mostly live format. These are not media pros and as such are much easier to take advantage of than a normal business or industry. If anything the comparison to baseball is unfair because baseball is so much harder to break into, or get info from. Esports by comparison is like taking candy from a baby. As long as the people involved are young and loose lipped (which they always will be in this industry) the barrier to access will remain much lower than normal. | ||
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EasleyThames
United States1 Post
On January 17 2013 05:08 jmbthirteen wrote: Also, about Alex's rant about how what Slasher does only helps himself, isn't what EG wants only helps EG? Thats the point of business right? Last I checked, Slasher needs to help himself too. Journalism in esports isn't in a great place either, yet it is absolutely a necessary function of esports. I think the argument Alex was trying to make was that the e-sports pie is still very small, and that e-sports journalists and team owners are BOTH better off cooperating for now. Someday, sure, perhaps we will have the kind of environment that traditional sports do, but everything is extremely uncertain. It would only take a few big sponsors pulling support to kill virtually any team in Starcraft 2 today. To be fair Alex was also providing examples of how Slasher could help himself just as much without hurting the teams. Stuff like exclusives, and generally preparing to release a real quality piece on the announcement date. No one said Slasher is somehow breaking the law, or could be forced to stop, and I find the whole comment in the OP of this thread about free societies to be completely out of place. What Alex was asking Slasher to do was to choose to cooperate out of mutual self-interest (see the comments about "value propositions" that Alex made). Also, to say Alex has only helped himself is not accurate. He employs a large number of players, creating jobs in e-sports, which is very limited industry so far. If not for his ability to generate good exposure for his sponsors, those gamers would be making less somewhere else or, in many cases, not employed at all. I find it pretty ridiculous that people want to compare Starcraft 2 to Baseball. It's so different it's almost a joke. The money is generated very differently for a e-sports team than it is for a Baseball team, and unlike Baseball, this industry is not guaranteed to last long. Baseball is deeply rooted in American culture, can anyone say the same for Starcraft in any country other than Korea? Many teams have failed, and the amount of people watching an event is absolutely miniscule compared to how many people watch major league baseball, let alone more popular sporting leagues like the NBA. You also have much younger players involved in e-sports (16-22 typically) who are much less seasoned at dealing with press agents, and this often results in massive damage to their team's PR efforts due to leaks. I think that, when dealing with minors, the issue may be further complicated on an ethical level. To make it worse, they are rarely supported by the kind of lawyers, PR specialists, and trainers that real athletes can afford. Even EG, the most sophisticated team in the industry, has very limited professional capacities to micro-manage their players compared to a MLB or NBA team. | ||
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EG.lectR
United States617 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:20 jmbthirteen wrote: so instead you try and control the journalists, because thats the quick and easy fix at the moment.... That's a strange response. Can you respond to what I've said? Do you have a suggestion or can clarify a process? Because if you can't and if you understand what I've typed, then you see the dilemma and how inapplicable a traditional model is to e-sports right now. | ||
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stratmatt
United States913 Posts
When has alex garfield made a public appearance that DIDNT make him look like a complete moron/tool? Alex Garfield is not the 'rule' of esports, he is the 'exception'. Most 'pro' teams stand to benefit from ANY coverage they may recieve on gamespot. EG's wishes honestly mean jack shit when it comes to esports, only alexs' wallet. | ||
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FilipSRB
Serbia63 Posts
Edit: Also, there is an obvious problem of slippery slope of when is esports grown up so that it can withstand leaking and "serious" journalism. Who decides that? | ||
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Kishin2
United States7534 Posts
Alex is seeing things from a business perspective. Rod is seeing things from a journalistic point of view. However, both Alex and Rod, I would expect, have a common interest of expanding the e-sports scene. Alex does this by generating revenue from areas outside e-sports. Rod does this by obtaining publicity on the scene. Because slasher published information preemptively, Alex generates less revenue for himself and thus, e-sports. The real issue I see isn't the decision to report on news, but the presumed interest of both parties to grow e-sports and one party opting for a decision that seemingly goes against that common interest. Is slasher's journalistic integrity greater than his interest in growing the e-sports scene in this case? In summary, the dynamics between Alex and Rod are different than conventional sports and things that apply in traditional sports don't necessarily apply in this case, since there exists unknown information. I'm not going to contend that journalists shouldn't do the equivalent of what slasher did for the purpose of his/her journalistic integrity. However, I don't agree that it's the right time for a journalist within e-sports to exercise that integrity at the expense of e-sports. In a more perfect world, a situation of a journalist releasing inside information preemptively should start occurring when the e-sports scene is large enough such that a freelance journalist from outside the e-sports scene takes interest in doing so for their benefit. At the moment, it wouldn't benefit a freelance journalist from out of the blue to report something like this. There isn't enough incentive. I suppose slasher, as well as other journalists and writers, would disagree with my views on this. Edit: To be clear, I, nor do I think anyone else, is really disagreeing that slasher has the right to do what he did. It's unanimously agreed that yes, slasher is a journalist, and he can do this. However, what I am arguing is that should slasher have done what he did if he wanted to benefit e-sports. He has not given his view on this at all so far and the most we have from his side is that he has the power to do so. No answer has been given whether he should exercise that power in this situation. | ||
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Quanticfograw
United States2053 Posts
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Disposition1989
Canada270 Posts
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hangarninetysix
263 Posts
I wonder if T1 had problems with rumours PartinG was heading to SKT? | ||
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vesicular
United States1310 Posts
On January 17 2013 05:31 Kishin2 wrote: Alex is seeing things from a business perspective. Rod is seeing things from a journalistic point of view. However, both Alex and Rod, I would expect, have a common interest of expanding the e-sports scene. Alex does this by generating revenue from areas outside e-sports. Rod does this by obtaining publicity on the scene. Because slasher published information preemptively, Alex generates less revenue for himself and thus, e-sports. The real issue I see isn't the decision to report on news, but the presumed interest of both parties to grow e-sports and one party opting for a decision that seemingly goes against that common interest. Is slasher's journalistic integrity greater than his interest in growing the e-sports scene in this case? To answer your question, yes. If Slasher wants to be a journalist, not just the SC2 journalist, then his own decision on when to break (or not) a news story comes before anything esports related. If esports can't survive because its business model revolves around secrecy then it has one of two choices. A) get everyone to keep quiet and don't leak anything ever, or B) close up shop and move on. My guess is neither is a realistic option, and the business model can survive quite well if the companies surrounding it were smarter. Any actual journalist has no responsibility to anything other than the story. Every good journalist will know where the line is drawn to maximize both exclusives and scoops, but the notion of needing to work a certain way "for esports" is a ridiculous notion. | ||
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