EPTI could ramble on about eSports journalism politics and responsibility, but that's not why I started writing this, I am writing this as a response to TotalBiscuit's tweet that brings a subject that was lightly touched upon in the initial arguments, but never fully explored. The tweet said the following;
“Can someone tell me why Own3d has been apparently screwing eSports players for months and yet the only "journalist" to break it was Destiny?”
Plain and simple, it's selective eSports journalism, lets look at the who's and why's with a few select news outlets did not rush for the breaking news story that had multiple players / teams decide to speak out. Here are the main few;
Well let's look at GameStop, owned by CBS Interactive (CBSi). CBSi pays advertising fees to Own3d, and possibly invests in Own3d, as an affiliate CBSi cannot take the potential risks and losses incurred with a news post that is claiming that a affiliate partner has not been paying out what's due. Okay understandable, it's always been recorded that a news function will not and cannot condemn or report any affiliated news that puts the parent company at risk.
Edited in: Additionally it could have come as a shock to them as much as everyone in the community, but that is up for debate considering how much news gets passed around.
ESFI is a more recent company, but it started out wrong in a journalistic and favoritism standpoint, some articles were obviously biased and slanted where only reviewing one viewpoint versus getting the whole story. The problem then was and still continues to be, is that there are readers take the information as it is. Though coincidentally Destiny was the one to bring up the subject. The outcome is that now ESFI has gone neutral, and seems that it won't come out of that shell in fear that it'll be the center of a controversy again.
So here we are, I could go and bring Cadred into the subject, but ever since Richard Lewis decided to broach the leg up subject, it brings up a whole different subject entirely. Although generally speaking Cadred had been the forerunner in exposing fake teams but they have never brought the spotlight to ill-run companies. Then we have GosuGamers that from to time come out with semi-breaking news articles but predominantly have been a player transaction / team transition news site.
Then there's us, the outsiders, as I like to call my fellow freelance / third party journalists. We are the ones that try to seize the opportunities however small they are as a means of getting "in" with the industry. I've had the chance to work within different organizations as your standard journalist, I've had the opportunity to announce player signings, and do interviews with some of the most regarded players in StarCraft. However one thing I wanted to get into was investigative journalism, this wasn't possible with a team that relies on sponsorship both present and future.
Getting to the point, there is no team / news organization that is willing to take the risk of exposing other organizations / companies without worrying about a relapse affect from their affiliates, investors, etc. On the other hand, while the third party journalists will be more than willing to get their name out there, the outcome of exposing an organization is not that favorable, we will have our contacts ponder how safe their secrets are, and begin to limit our knowledge of information.
Being a journalist is of course a double edged sword, as shown many times in this industry. Say a independent journalist came out with an article like Destiny's, only more expanded and involving more players and/or teams. We don't know if it would have reached a broader audience, we don't know if the community reaction would have been the same, This is the adverse reaction the community can give, it’s acidity towards unknown journalists can be very harsh. If we want this information to be public, we have to set industry standards that doesn't burn the hands of journalists before they prosper. It understandable to want quality, but even with quality, there is still that unwavering acidity towards new journalists, it’s a very tilted gamble. To flourish journalism we need to critique the newer journalist, but not at the cost of them turning away from the community. I understand too that there will be those who cannot handle the criticism. We need to start somewhere, we need to be open to something new, but it all starts from you the reader.
-John
Follow me @John_Perd
