[GSL] S3 Qualifiers D2 - Page 221

Hey Everyone,

This is my first post on TL - long time reader, though (I don't usually participate on forums). For those of you who don't know me (probably, erm, every one of you), I'm the owner of Evil Geniuses... for those of you who watched the EG Masters' Cup stream so brilliantly produced by EG.SirScoots, I was "That Guy Behind The Broadcast Desk Who Didn't Want To Be On Cam." I've been involved in pro gaming for a long time now, and I decided to register my account on TL just now because I all of a sudden find this thread very problematic.

As everyone here is probably aware, TL is a juggernaut SC entity in eSports, and "wears two hats," so to say, as both a professional team and a coverage website. Some would argue that its influence as a coverage website and community stretches further than the influence of its pro players. In any case, obviously the two identities are intertwined and overlap to a certain extent.

Moving on (finally) to my point: as a very important, influential coverage hub focusing on what is currently pro gaming's most prevalent community, you can't be censoring players' names. I don't want to jump the gun and start waving around the "journalistic integrity" card prematurely, but I think it's pretty significant. Sure, TL isn't ESPN (yet), and sure, this is a forum-embedded community news piece updated by a very dedicated TL community member (for which I am grateful), but those - to me - are no excuse for throwing high standards of unbiased journalism to the side. It doesn't matter whether this is a forum post or a front-page news piece: you can't be censoring players' names or clan names just because they beat a community favorite.

Unfortunately, this pattern isn't necessarily restricted to this particular thread. There is a very minor (albeit certainly noticeable) trend on TL of posters only ensuring that Liquid pro players have their clan name mentioned - I.E. HuK is always referred to in TL coverage as Liquid`HuK, whereas SeleCt, for example, has always been just "SeleCt" and never "Dignitas.SeleCt" (at least as far as I've seen). This seems to vary based on the player and the community's familiarity with said player - IdrA, for example, is always referred to be the TL coverage folks as "EGIdrA" (we at EG are thankful for this) - but it is certainly a consistent trend. TL players are always referred to as TL players, but players from other pro teams don't necessarily always have their team name attached to their alias.

This is, of course, certainly *not* a case of intentional bias, and I'm not insinuating that it is in any way (I recently met Nazgul and several other TL executives at Blizzcon, and they held themselves with the utmost integrity and professionalism). At the end of the day, like many in this thread have pointed out, this is TL's home territory, and those covering competitions here ensure, first and foremost, that they point out what's going on with TL pro players. However, with that being said, sometimes intent is irrelevant (or close to it) when discussing matters of this matter - I.E., is neglecting to put in the care/effort to refer to SeleCt (for example) as Dignitas.SeleCt really any better than intentionally leaving out the team name? Maybe marginally better... but maybe not at all.

To summarize this already too-long post, I think it's really important for everyone in this community to remember that TL, while still a team website, is definitively the SC2 coverage hub of the English-speaking world. And any kind of journalistic bias here, whether intentional or unintentional, whether major or extremely minor (as minor as censoring a player's name because he beat HuK today), whether coming from an official TL coverage staff member or a dedicated community member not officially affiliated with TL, is extremely, extremely problematic. With this website getting the amount of traffic and attention that it does get (and should get), the coverage here needs to be held to high standards of journalistic integrity.

And at the end of the day, sure, this is TL's home base, and favoring TL's pro players in coverage posts - if it is desired to do so - may be TL's right... but doing something just because you have the power to ("just because you can") is really a very poor justification for doing anything.

(Thanks to those of you who actually read all of this)

-A