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The Armchair Athleticism critical series is an opinion-base article series regarding the issues and sociocultural deficiencies of the E-Sports and StarCraft scene. All articles are perceptive-base and revolving around my own experiences and understanding of the subculture.
+ Show Spoiler [introduction] +The Solo Trail – Unbeaten - Posted on October 20, 2012I’ve probably rewritten this introduction hundreds of times. Each time I did, it said too much or too little about myself or the basic goals I wanted to outline with this page. Let’s just start with general information about myself: my name is Michael Cohen, I am a 23-year old Sociology and Professional [information] Writing student. I have been contributing to this subculture we all love called E-Sports for only two years and while that may not seem like very long, I’ve done my fair share of work and contributions. The short version of my credentials? - Manager of 5 progaming teams (50+ professional players)
- Writer for 9 E-sports websites (5 team sites + 4 organizations: 150+ docs/articles)
- Organizer or Contributor of 11 community events (74,000 viewers/attendants)
- Some video-editing for one or two organizations, nothing big, just twitch.tv highlight-editing, presentational writing, etc.
Sounds impressive, at least to me it does and it fills my entire two-page CV (seriously, I had to remove some minimum-wage jobs I had done in 2006-2008 to fit it all), but the first lesson you have to learn when you want to get anywhere in E-Sports is to learn to dedicate yourself to a few organizations over a long period of time (which I haven’t done, so I am being patronizing from the other side). It doesn’t take a math wizard to see that if I’ve done all of this in two years, it means: - I Juggled a lot of jobs simultaneously (Writing, Organizing BarCrafts or a tournament, managing players)
- I left a lot of solid organizations and went to a new one soon after (many reasons for this one)
- I learned quantity may not necessarily mean quality work and while I like to think I did a pretty damn good job managing players and writing articles, someone who only does one of those jobs at a time will improve faster and will have a stronger connection with his peers.
So that’s that and I’d be lying if I was satisfied. I got to work with some awesome people and on the flipside; with a lot of organizations that have made me bitter. Over time the facade of working to “help Esports grow” quickly diminished. I think anyone who tells you that they’re doing something “to help/grow Esports” isn’t being entirely truthful. Anyone who does their job(s) unpaid and purely out of passion are doing it both for the sake of their eagerness to matter in a populating scene as well as to help their organization. That’s not necessarily bad as I soon learned when writing this series, but I noticed that E-sports grows through everyone’s contributions. So using that utilitarian statement to recruit new volunteers or to discredit any accusations of malice is counter-productive in the grand scheme of things. Interpret it how you will and I’m sure we could even widen the range of people who bullshit with the buzzword(s) “Growing Esports”. I’ll answer the foundational question I wanted to answer from the start: Why are you starting your own space?I was listening to the suggestions of several friends and I finally started this space after I hit a dead-end in my endeavours in E-Sports. I’m at a point where I am not really affiliated with anyone and now’s a better time than ever to do some opinion topics. Doing my own content meant I would be alone and would work around my own initiative, drive and interest. However, it also meant that I may do something that requires more work than I thought and I would be on my own. It meant that the community reception can be more direct and harsh towards me personally and my views as I would not be backed by some credible organization as when I was writer for some. In the end, this series that took me about a month of writing, editing, verification and re-writing will really be everything I’ve learned, observed and felt throughout my time. I started out with three pieces and ended up going to ten. All of them delve into inspecting the five perspectives of the scene: teams, tournaments, players, spectators and contributors. Ultimately, it aims to really take a strong look into the many issues that inhibit the StarCraft community and E-Sports culture.
Dependent Journalism and its Constraints - Posted on October 23, 2012
When it comes to deciding how I would start the series, I had two paths: the thin line of self-promotion or the in-betweeners known as E-Sports “Journalism”. E-Sports journalism has been a steady growth since its Counter-Strike days and has evolved into being both an outlet to get the right story and an outlet to see iconic people give a couple of words in interviews.
I’ll be writing about E-Sports Journalism mainly because of its coexistence with everyone in the scene. Writing in E-Sports is a thin line of having to be both reliable for the community, but not flat-out objectively crude when reporting some of the darker parts in competitive gaming. When I thought of writing my own content, I thought of the associated liberty that goes with it. When writing your own opinions, you can either rely on the editorial and publishing works of major media sites or go solo, uncensored. Here’s an example of what I mean:
A few weeks back, I wanted to write a piece about Team X, I chose a shock-title being: “Why everyone hates Team X“, I don’t personally hate X, but they were my base-line to expand on the idea of the importance of story and story-telling. The idea was solid, but if I do implicitly paint X negatively, I either hurt the site’s reputation or fans don’t read the site because of the piece. The trade-off isn’t worth it for them. These dilemmas of hurting no one, but trying to please all are what E-Sports journalist sites face almost every day. The lack of open criticism and public denunciations is due to two major aspects that really crush diversity in E-Sports news media as well as sprouting different opinions.
E-Sports Journalism cannot be Independent. What that means is that criticism about specific people or organizations becomes unsafe waters. Typically whenever someone does have something critical to say, they either glaze over particulars, specific situations or simply don’t mention names. The reason for this is because most news sites rely on personal networks within other organizations to get their news like when ESFI broke the news about RGN Gaming shutting down, he [Brent, CEO of ESFI World - smart and level-headed man] found this out through Frank [CEO of VT Gaming/ReIGN - works for IPL now]. In order to obtain these kinds of exclusives including interviews, quotes and more, news media sites must tread lightly when it comes to news about other organizations. This is because in E-Sports they all rely on announcements from other organizations to get their hits and views. You won’t see many sites ‘leaking’ information because the team website also needs hits and page views for marketable purposes. If you do leak it before them, you gain hits in the short-run, but you miss out on future inside information [like Check-Six disbanding, which ESFI got the exclusive on]. So the question becomes, how do we become critical of others with these social restraints? Well, the community label of pitchforking often sprouts up and this is a side-effect (in my opinion) of the above situation as well.
Let’s look at the editorial listings for three news network sites of E-Sports (Cadred.org, ESFI World, D-Esports) and see what they’re featuring:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jQXrw.png) - ESFI World (top-left), Definitive E-Sports (top-right)
Cadred.org (bottom-left)
All three of these websites are starving for editorials/opinions. ESFI World has been going more forward with their work, Cadred as well, but I wouldn’t be satisfied yet. The reality of it is that most criticisms don’t need to mention names to get their point across. I’m not telling these networks to go out of their way to burn bridges for a small increase of website hits. But even if they were intending to, the thought of naming names could cost opportunities and incriminate yourself. Everyone is seeking to grow and keep as many connections as they can, so sometimes being bold with words ends up having the world depict you as brash. The upside to these restraints of current journalism is that you get a lot of interviews and promotions instead of negativity.
But, let’s say a news media site does get a pretty juicy story from a reliable source: do you think the source will be named? Unlikely for both the reasons above as well as the fact that that person puts himself at risk for minimal reward (not everyone wants to go out of their way to inform the public). This leads us to the exceptions and their unique career situation:
Welcome to Live on Three. You have Marcus Graham (DJwheat), Scott (SirScoots) and Rod Breslau (Slasher), self-made men who sacrificed and realized all they could do for years and years [and earned where they are now]. SirScoots is my favourite amongst the three and someone I also respect for both his expertise, confidence and having the balls to say what needs to be said. James Lampkin (Kennigit) as well has been becoming rather open with some of the persistent issue this scene has been back and forth on. The beauty about Scott, James and Joshua Dentrinos’ (FXOBoss) position is that they’re seated very comfortably. They’ve created long-standing relationships that give them room to breathe and speak freely (almost). This, along with their attitude, gives them the rare ability to really get to the issue about certain people, organizations and problems. Granted they’re not ridiculous or excessive with accusations, they know when to not get involved, to stay in their own end of the world or formulate it as a general lesson to listeners. But every once in awhile, when they know they have the knowledge and supported evidence to say something, they will say it and that’s commending.
However, when other people do it without the right credentials, shit hits the fan. Journalists and news sites don’t have this rare ability and neither do their writers independently, not yet. Let’s use a personal anecdote:
Mark is a flat out liar.
He specifically told EG that he was in talks with Dignitas and threatened numerous times to transfer him to Dignitas if we did not meet his terms and/or meet them by a certain time. So either he lied on this show or he lied to EG during the negotiations. So either the viewers cannot trust him, or those he does business with behind the scenes should be wary. Neither is good.
On top of that, this is the same guy that used to praise me personally, called me Yoda Master, more times than I care to count, used to say he loved how “real” we are on Live on Three etc. The minute we are no longer buddies (because I realized that he was not to be trusted and was a bullshitter and a liar) he goes public with “I swear too much and therefore our show is damaging to the growth of esports.” What a crock of shit. I may say things people do not agree with and I accept that, but I have zero patience with liars or hypocrites. He is both.
This is something SirScoots said back in August about Mark, Quantic’s CEO. This shows a great difference between someone with confidence about what they’re saying, plus how comfortable they are in their position. Now compare that to someone (like myself) still striving to work with a reputable organization or team. If I were to say similar things or tell my own bad experience with Quantic Gaming, it’d look bad. It’d hurt the organization which still has a lot of good in it. It’d hurt the players involved who are living their dream thanks to this organization. So while I may get my egotistical justice served to one bad experience, it puts a lot of people out of work and out of options. Ultimately, it also hurts my reputation, or whatever illusion of it I feel I might have. Plus, would everyone believe me 100%? Unlikely, there will be skeptics and rightfully so. I don’t have the trust and credibility of the community to say what Scoots can say and that’s mostly because of how new I am (like many, many others) to the business than the more experienced. The point being is that current journalist websites don’t have the same public recognition that these long-time contributors have. In addition, their fields are not journalism and they don't rely on the news of others in order to earn their livelihood.
So to summarize: 1. E-Sports Journalism is not necessarily independent.
- This prevents both leaks/news before the team/organization wants to release it.
- It halts incriminating accusations or issues, thus leaving the public uninformed.
- Featured news starts revolving more around promotion and positive outlooks than negative ones.
2. E-Sports News Media Sites are not self-sustained.
- This means that personal relationships with team owners and iconic members are important to be maintained and cannot be tarnished by independent criticisms.
- People of seniority are more reliable for realistic perceptions of the scene than news media sites (of course, it’s all personal opinion nonetheless).
It’s a bit ironic to see E-Sports news media sites become restrained in what topics they can and cannot cover, but for iconic members unrelated to that field, have the capability to speak a hard truth. As the scene continues to evolve, a separation of dependency may occur that gives these websites more liberty rather than reposting the latest splash of news that hits the community.
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This informed series of written pieces could not have been achieved without the help and opinions of my peers and friends. Below are the people I wish to thank for their insight, accuracy/consistency check or expert opinion on the numerous topics: thank you
- Brad Carney (Lefty)
- Eric Grady (Cyber-Sports Network's Director of Events - Usurp)
- Flo Yao (Quantic Gaming’s Progamer - Flo)
- Jacqueline Geller (eSports Network Coordinator of Blizzard)
- John Clark (Cyber-Sports Network Executive Director of Operations)
- Josh Dentrinos (FXOpen’s Director - Boss)
- Marc McEntegart (Team Liquid Writer - SirJolt)
- Matt Weber (Team Liquid Administrator - Heyoka)
- Payam Toghyan (ROOT Gaming Progamer - TT1)
- Shawn Simon (Team Liquid Progamer - Sheth)
- Steven Bonnell II (Progamer/Entertainer - Destiny)
- Thomas Shifrer (ESFI World Senior Journalist)
If you'd like more information about the series (more pieces about different aspects of the scene will be released periodically), to contact me privately or to generously give me some siteviews on my website, you can follow the following link:
You can also follow me on Twitter where I tweet public news and information about the scene including roster changes, controversy and/or overall E-Sports news: @TorteDeLini
Thank you very much and I appreciate all feedback or corrections.
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Wow.. he released it! Great stuff and well worth the read!
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Read them all already. Great read brother.
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The more I read what you post on TL, the more I respect you.
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Amazing article Torte. You truly are a legend around here and I am never ceasing to be amazed at how much sense you bring to discussions.
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Well at least you touched based on seniority but even that is somewhat have a sham in itself because there are still a lot of green people in the industry who don't know how to manage their PR.
Then you have people that are still in school like yourself Torte. A lot of aspiring, young guns who are only getting their feet wet. That makes up a lot of it anyway.
Independent journalism? Please.
Experienced reporters know how to keep a good repertoire and still get the story. There is nothing wrong with good criticism either. I really don't get the purpose of what you wrote other than to say, "Sorry guys, but independent journalism doesn't really exist in our scene."
You don't have to burn bridges to be a good journalist. It's more like walking on a tightrope.
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Torte, I can't even wrap my head around how much time you must put into this stuff. Good shit, mad respect. I'm looking forward the the next pieces, enjoyed the read so far.
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Awesome piece! Keep it up!
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So what is the great revelation here? "Indepedent journalism doesn't exist"? WOW!!!!! GENIUS work!
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As somebody who writes about hard truths in a biweekly column on ESFI, thanks for ignoring me.
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On October 25 2012 04:57 AlphaFerg wrote:
As somebody who writes about hard truths in a biweekly column on ESFI, thanks for ignoring me.
I think you need to read his acknowledgements again because those are the people he interacts with. This isn't about who he agrees with or thinks are good writers.
In our scene there are very few and as I already said, a lot of that has to do with the fact that a lot of the people covering SC2 and the other games are green as hell. They have next to no real experience. Including Torte. Yes he's been apart of many organizations and has a lengthy resume, but in the real world many of these wouldn't be considered to be a real job because many people don't know we exist, lots of it is volunteer work and very few can actually make a career out of it. Every referral would get checked.
It happened to me as well. People have a lot of questions when it comes to the E-Sport Industry. Okay, enough of that tangent.
You guys are still learning the ropes. Nothing wrong with being young and you will have to learn at a brisk pace. That's actually a good thing because people around these parts have no problem giving you criticism. Not to say all of it is good criticism, but that's where you need a good filter so you can get to the meat.
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There is good, independent journalism being done in e-sports. Painstakingly so. Make your own conclusions and decide for yourselves where that might be. There are people that are passionate about it and sacrifice a lot for it, including Torte.
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Thx for read. Followed you on Twitter so I can catch more of your work.
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United States33470 Posts
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On October 25 2012 06:45 Waxangel wrote:
tl;dr
Kennigit does what you do, but better.
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On October 25 2012 07:20 Torte de Lini wrote:Kennigit does what you do, but better.
You're both awesome.
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Looking forward to reading everything 
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On October 25 2012 07:20 Torte de Lini wrote:Kennigit does what you do, but better.
James does stuff?
This is news to me. D:
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Thank you for the feedback everyone. As more articles come out, I hope to gain more readers.
Thank you to Live on Three for mentioning my piece as well.
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If only you'd browsed a bit harder, you'd have found that Cadred publishes more editorial than any other website. Indeed my very own column is the longest running one in e-sports.
You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't.
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definitely interesting read, and thank you for writing it Torte.
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The next piece of the series will be released tomorrow.
Thank you again for your comments and views.
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Thanks for the topic title change ^^
Bumping this topic because of recent events and discussion!
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Canada1169 Posts
Becoming increasingly relevant now, definitely worth a read again or for the first time.
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Very interesting read. I recall SirScoots discussing this exact topic on LO3 a few months back about how Esports journalists can't criticize certain people/organizations because their reputation isn't established enough. It's nice to see the perspective of someone whose in this position. Keep it up Torte.
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Thanks.
Yes, SirScoots and LO3 with Slasher talked about this, though I don't think anyone got mad at him at the time.
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You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump.
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On January 17 2013 01:44 Richard_Lewis wrote:
You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump.
I only see one you mentioned. Are there any others?
You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't.
If this is it, then this is just you unhappy with my assessment of your organization. It doesn't go against the general message and points of this piece.
If there are other inaccuracies, let me know, because with the people I verified the piece with; they didn't claim any.
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Canada13389 Posts
On January 17 2013 01:46 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 01:44 Richard_Lewis wrote:
You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump. I only see one you mentioned. Are there any others? Show nested quote +You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't. If this is it, then this is just you unhappy with my assessment of your organization. It doesn't go against the general message and points of this piece. If there are other inaccuracies, let me know, because with the people I verified the piece with; they didn't claim any.
But Torte its your job to make organizations look good. Right?
Jokes aside, I enjoyed the piece a few months ago but am confused as to its bump. It doesn't really address the issues that people are frothing over today regarding Slasher at all.
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On January 17 2013 01:52 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 01:46 Torte de Lini wrote:On January 17 2013 01:44 Richard_Lewis wrote:
You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump. I only see one you mentioned. Are there any others? You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't. If this is it, then this is just you unhappy with my assessment of your organization. It doesn't go against the general message and points of this piece. If there are other inaccuracies, let me know, because with the people I verified the piece with; they didn't claim any. But Torte its your job to make organizations look good. Right? Jokes aside, I enjoyed the piece a few months ago but am confused as to its bump. It doesn't really address the issues that people are frothing over today regarding Slasher at all.
It actually does by the issue of the difficulty of independent journalism. In essence slasher is doing what esfi and others don't because they understand the problem with breaking news before teams. Doing so breaks your relationship with organisation and you lose out on exclusives or even interviews.
Because of these sorts of mindfulness, selective journalism happens.
When I get on my computer I'll quote it, but it's the four bullet points at the bottom of this article
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On January 17 2013 01:46 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 01:44 Richard_Lewis wrote:
You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump. I only see one you mentioned. Are there any others? Show nested quote +You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't. If this is it, then this is just you unhappy with my assessment of your organization. It doesn't go against the general message and points of this piece. If there are other inaccuracies, let me know, because with the people I verified the piece with; they didn't claim any.
No. I don't care how you assess "my organisation". You have however took a small cross section of examples and then used them to make sweeping statements and generalities.
I'd not feel comfortable making comments about the standard of journalism in any field if that was my methodology.
As the above poster recognises as well, this bump is cheap at best. The piece isn't really relevant to what people are discussing currently.
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Torte de Lini, good luck in your attempts to become a journalist for e-sports. Hope it works out. You can make it happen.
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On January 17 2013 02:01 Richard_Lewis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 01:46 Torte de Lini wrote:On January 17 2013 01:44 Richard_Lewis wrote:
You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump. I only see one you mentioned. Are there any others? You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't. If this is it, then this is just you unhappy with my assessment of your organization. It doesn't go against the general message and points of this piece. If there are other inaccuracies, let me know, because with the people I verified the piece with; they didn't claim any. No. I don't care how you assess "my organisation". You have however took a small cross section of examples and then used them to make sweeping statements and generalities. I'd not feel comfortable making comments about the standard of journalism in any field if that was my methodology. As the above poster recognises as well, this bump is cheap at best. The piece isn't really relevant to what people are discussing currently.
The "cross section of examples" were verified and accepted by both ESFI World and D-Esports (and/or their members heavily involved), neither disagreed or objected, only you. These generalities may be "sweeping", but they're accepted by nearly all parties involved.
If verifying your work by other individuals who are equally credited by similar work or more is insufficient to make comments about the standard of journalism, then you'll find working with others quite difficult.
The bump isn't "cheap" because I get nothing back in terms of actual value (I just like the discussions, all articles are posted in full on Team Liquid), the piece is heavily relevant to the current situation as it pertains to the obligations and issues journalism faces if they don't abide by expected relationships with current news sources and organizations.
You mentioned there were a lot of "inaccuracies". Please state where.
I'll correct where it needs to be corrected, but if you're just here to slander, then I don't think you'll do much at all.
On January 17 2013 02:02 revel8 wrote:
Torte de Lini, good luck in your attempts to become a journalist for e-sports. Hope it works out. You can make it happen.
haha, thanks
Zeromus: So to summarize: 1. E-Sports Journalism is not necessarily independent.- This prevents both leaks/news before the team/organization wants to release it.
- It halts incriminating accusations or issues, thus leaving the public uninformed.
- Featured news starts revolving more around promotion and positive outlooks than negative ones.
2. E-Sports News Media Sites are not self-sustained.- This means that personal relationships with team owners and iconic members are important to be maintained and cannot be tarnished by independent criticisms.
- People of seniority are more reliable for realistic perceptions of the scene than news media sites (of course, it’s all personal opinion nonetheless).
found it.
In essence, you cannot have independent journalism at its fullest because of what it pertains in terms of "leaks", release of harmful news that hurts your relationships with organizations and, in turn, you lose out on potential content. It's a short-term gain for a major relationship loss.
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Great article Torte!! You keep astounding me with what you observe, and the depth to which you can put it to paper.
I would say that what I feel is the reason for the esports news outlets "walking on egg shells" is that the community is way to quick to judge. We immediately jump on anybody who has a differing opinion than our own, and never really stop to think about things from their perspective(s). Part of this is probably due to the anonymity brought about by the internet. Since all discussions are done behind a handle, nobody feels they can be blamed for being wrong in chasing off somebody who's
1)brave enough to say what they think
2)brave enough to put their actual names and/or faces out there for everybody to see.
By the way, I think it's interesting to see you post your whole article here, which mentions sites wanting to get more hits for themselves. This is something almost never seen on TL, usually you have a quote, and quick summary, asking people to go read the whole article on their own main page. Your site is actually very well put together, and easy to navigate. I enjoy it.
As always, keep 'em coming! <3
~Ryuhou
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Where there is interest (fans want to know everything, the good and especially the bad), there will always be leeks.
Because don't forget that if the eSports journalism is not independent(because of all the reason you have talked about) it also means they are "owned" or atleast must keep up with the people they have has friends and that means it can put them in a conflict on interest against another organization.
For instance imagine you are sponsored by twitch or have a big partnership with them, you don't want to mess that up by saying owned will pay better then twitch for streams for instance. If you are on good terms with EG and their players you might not want to put a breaking news that reflects bad on them.
This is the problem of journalism all over the world. You don't want to mess up privileged relantionships, but sometimes you must.
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On January 17 2013 02:17 Ryuhou)aS( wrote:
Great article Torte!! You keep astounding me with what you observe, and the depth to which you can put it to paper.
I would say that what I feel is the reason for the esports news outlets "walking on egg shells" is that the community is way to quick to judge. We immediately jump on anybody who has a differing opinion than our own, and never really stop to think about things from their perspective(s). Part of this is probably due to the anonymity brought about by the internet. Since all discussions are done behind a handle, nobody feels they can be blamed for being wrong in chasing off somebody who's
1)brave enough to say what they think
2)brave enough to put their actual names and/or faces out there for everybody to see.
By the way, I think it's interesting to see you post your whole article here, which mentions sites wanting to get more hits for themselves. This is something almost never seen on TL, usually you have a quote, and quick summary, asking people to go read the whole article on their own main page. Your site is actually very well put together, and easy to navigate. I enjoy it.
As always, keep 'em coming! <3
~Ryuhou
Thanks!
My site is an archive for all my articles and pieces. I offer the link to read them all on my site, but I don't gain anything from it and this is purely out of interest + looks good on my CV, so I'm glad you enjoy it ^^ (I love formatting posts too hehe)
I want to generate opinions and discussions about topics, making people go elsewhere to read and come back to post is counter-intuitive!
I think the community plays a good role in what orgs want to post or say, yeah. I don't know if its as serious as you claim, but I can definitely see some truth in you're concluding!
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On January 17 2013 02:22 shell wrote:
Where there is interest (fans want to know everything, the good and especially the bad), there will always be leeks.
Because don't forget that if the eSports journalism is not independent(because of all the reason you have talked about) it also means they are "owned" or atleast must keep up with the people they have has friends and that means it can put them in a conflict on interest against another organization.
For instance imagine you are sponsored by twitch or have a big partnership with them, you don't want to mess that up by saying owned will pay better then twitch for streams for instance. If you are on good terms with EG and their players you might not want to put a breaking news that reflects bad on them.
This is the problem of journalism all over the world. You don't want to mess up privileged relantionships, but sometimes you must.
No doubt that the issues within E-Sports are mirrored similarly within real journalism, which is a huge crying shame.
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You made a lot inaccurate points at the time and those still haven't been addressed by a bump.
I only see one you mentioned. Are there any others?
You make points I agree with but you've took a very small cross section of our work and lumped us in with everyone else. In our busy periods we publish about six features a week. Many of these are opinion based. That small amount you have highlighted wasn't.
If this is it, then this is just you unhappy with my assessment of your organization. It doesn't go against the general message and points of this piece.
If there are other inaccuracies, let me know, because with the people I verified the piece with; they didn't claim any.[/QUOTE]
No. I don't care how you assess "my organisation". You have however took a small cross section of examples and then used them to make sweeping statements and generalities.
I'd not feel comfortable making comments about the standard of journalism in any field if that was my methodology.
As the above poster recognises as well, this bump is cheap at best. The piece isn't really relevant to what people are discussing currently. [/QUOTE]
The "cross section of examples" were verified and accepted by both ESFI World and D-Esports (and/or their members heavily involved), neither disagreed or objected, only you. These generalities may be "sweeping", but they're accepted by nearly all parties involved.
If verifying your work by other individuals who are equally credited by similar work or more is insufficient to make comments about the standard of journalism, then you'll find working with others quite difficult.
The bump isn't "cheap" because I get nothing back in terms of actual value (I just like the discussions, all articles are posted in full on Team Liquid), the piece is heavily relevant to the current situation as it pertains to the obligations and issues journalism faces if they don't abide by expected relationships with current news sources and organizations.
You mentioned there were a lot of "inaccuracies". Please state where.
I'll correct where it needs to be corrected, but if you're just here to slander, then I don't think you'll do much at all.
First before I go through your "article" (it's not really feature length) let me advise you to learn something all real journalists understand and that is the difference between slander and libel. I mean, you also need to learn what both of them are as my comments amount to neither in whatever form but it's embarrassing you see anybody claim to be a journalist and get it wrong.
These dilemmas of hurting no one, but trying to please all are what E-Sports journalist sites almost every day.
Missing a word from the sentence but the sentiments are clear. You're saying e-sports journalist sites go out of their way to "try and please everybody". I can't speak for the inner workings of others but having held paid jobs and worked for many sites in the past I can honestly say this has never been on anyone's agenda. More often than not, such as we did at GotFrag and still do at Cadred, we challenge people who try and bully their way into having "e-sports credibility", which is why more often than not these big organisations look to control these sites.
CGS desperately wanted Cadred and GotFrag onside so they could control what we said about them by threatening to remove our access. Neither site relented but we still got to attend events anyway.
Your statement is general and a lazy conclusion based on no evidence (at least presented here) and you speak with no insight due to your inexperience within the industry.
E-Sports Journalism cannot be Independent.
Again, this is little more than a vague opinion you are stating as fact. Cadred does indeed operate independently of all other influences. We report on what we want to, as we want to. When bridges are burned it is never by us, nor do we seek to rebuild them when they are invariably resurrected from the ashes.
No one on the site has influenced a piece of editorial, nor paid for us to alter an opinion. We have run advertising features, although they are infrequent, but they wouldn't prevent us writing an article about the same people paying if there was a public interest requirement for us to do so.
We do work closely with organisations and try and find a happy medium but if something has to be reported there is nothing anyone can say to prevent us from doing so. The site isn't sponsored by anyone, it is the extension of a privately owned business and the owners are dedicated to independent reporting and high quality content, not acting as an extension of anyone's PR division.
All three of these websites are starving for editorials/opinions
Define starving. Our website runs more editorial than any other e-sports site out there, has had guest columns from some of the biggest names in the industry, is home of the longest running e-sports column (which I write) and has regularly published articles deemed "inflammatory".
Does you taking a screenshot of one week of content where the number of informative pieces outweighs editorial really mean the site is starving of the content. Had you looked at the articles on the page before that you'd see there was plenty of editorial content.
Lazy "research" to validate a point.
But, let’s say a news media site does get a pretty juicy story from a reliable source: do you think the source will be named?
Not naming sources who divulge information such as this is nothing to do with e-sports and everything to do with journalistic ethics. I won't bore you with the details here but there's plenty of subject matter for you to study. This point doesn't tie to your article.
Journalists and news sites don’t have this rare ability and neither do their writers independently, not yet.
Here's an example of some of my pieces that say far worse than anything Scoots has done. They were printed on a site "starving" for editorial:
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/161387/
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/158712/
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/139868/
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/160761/
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/52969/
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/44363/
These are examples off the top of my head and there's probably hundreds more. In each piece we call out a person or organisation by name and slate them for what we perceive they have done wrong. If they are liars we call them so. I fail to see what prevents us from doing it.
E-Sports News Media Sites are not self-sustained.
Without knowing what you mean by "self sustained" I can't really address this properly. My gut is you're trying to imply that sites need organisations to survive. I'm afraid this simply isn't true.
As for why you bumped it despite it not being relevant... Reality is you crave attention. This is why you constantly criticise people who have made a significant contribution to the industry you profess to want to work in. It's easier to get noticed by association than it is to go out and make a difference yourself. For someone who claims to be passionate I wonder when you'll start doing some of that.
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Missing a word from the sentence but the sentiments are clear. You're saying e-sports journalist sites go out of their way to "try and please everybody". I can't speak for the inner workings of others but having held paid jobs and worked for many sites in the past I can honestly say this has never been on anyone's agenda. More often than not, such as we did at GotFrag and still do at Cadred, we challenge people who try and bully their way into having "e-sports credibility", which is why more often than not these big organisations look to control these sites.
CGS desperately wanted Cadred and GotFrag onside so they could control what we said about them by threatening to remove our access. Neither site relented but we still got to attend events anyway.
Your statement is general and a lazy conclusion based on no evidence (at least presented here) and you speak with no insight due to your inexperience within the industry.
No, these aren't lazy conclusions. In essence what I'm stating is that articles are selectively posted and worded in a manner that takes into account the views and points of the organizations. If ESFI World can get kicked out by MLG for trying to interview IPL, then I think my statement has some relevance. Legitimate concerns about organizations are accepted and I didn't clarify on this because it would require more than one page. Legitimate concerns such as MLG's bracket system are issues they're aware of and are commonly accepted by the community. Naturally MLG would prefer not to keep mentioning it, but at the same time, they understand that this is more of a concern and direct criticism than anything to tear down their credibility.
I'm stating that E-Sports journalists make sure not to step on anyone's toes and if you disagree then that's fine, but it's a true fact (based on personal experiences or what has been experienced by others I know - that is the length of some of these "facts"). A good example of this is when ESFI wrote about NaNiwa and the issues related to his behavior and such. When I went on to manage NaNiwa, he would not speak to me due to my previous affiliation with the site as well as his slanted view on how they portrayed him. I also made sure to note that criticisms that are general (for example: "stating all teams lack marketing of their players") are generally accepted because it doesn't single an organization out.
Just because our experiences and work differ doesn't make my perception any different than yours. The circumstances of then and now also greatly differ, especially with the relevance of E-sports news media websites. But if you want to pass that all off for the idea of being "lazy", then that's your choice.
Again, this is little more than a vague opinion you are stating as fact. Cadred does indeed operate independently of all other influences. We report on what we want to, as we want to. When bridges are burned it is never by us, nor do we seek to rebuild them when they are invariably resurrected from the ashes.
No one on the site has influenced a piece of editorial, nor paid for us to alter an opinion. We have run advertising features, although they are infrequent, but they wouldn't prevent us writing an article about the same people paying if there was a public interest requirement for us to do so.
We do work closely with organisations and try and find a happy medium but if something has to be reported there is nothing anyone can say to prevent us from doing so. The site isn't sponsored by anyone, it is the extension of a privately owned business and the owners are dedicated to independent reporting and high quality content, not acting as an extension of anyone's PR division.
All these articles are opinion-based. It's in the introduction and I open every piece with that statement. When I mention non-independent news, I mean that they rely on personal relationships in order to maintain some load of content (interviews/exclusive news such as the examples I gave in the example, etc.). Degrees of independence depend on the organization, obviously. For the sake of being concise, I didn't list all degrees of independent journalism because it doesn't deter from the main points (as summarized at the bottom). This independence also ranges from withholding major criticisms about certain people or issues (which you voice on your social media accounts, but never in a full-fledged article) towards not leaking news before the organization. You can claim that that is personal choice, but that choice is influenced by your rationale that it will hurt both your credibility, your site's reputation and popularity.
Define starving. Our website runs more editorial than any other e-sports site out there, has had guest columns from some of the biggest names in the industry, is home of the longest running e-sports column (which I write) and has regularly published articles deemed "inflammatory".
Does you taking a screenshot of one week of content where the number of informative pieces outweighs editorial really mean the site is starving of the content. Had you looked at the articles on the page before that you'd see there was plenty of editorial content.
Lazy "research" to validate a point.
Congratulations. If you're unhappy with the screenshot. You have your hub and site to disagree and write a counter-piece (which has been done by others and I always help popularize it!)
I used starving because I'm eccentric with words. The lack of consistency and frequency of editorials is the bottom-line of my statement.
As for why you bumped it despite it not being relevant... Reality is you crave attention. This is why you constantly criticise people who have made a significant contribution to the industry you profess to want to work in. It's easier to get noticed by association than it is to go out and make a difference yourself. For someone who claims to be passionate I wonder when you'll start doing some of that.
Unfortunately, it is relevant and even if not by your opinion, I am entirely allowed to do so (report this post if you disagree) and we can have staff decide [which is also more suitable].
Yes, I do enjoy praise and appreciation for my work. I'm not sure what you're revealing here. Do I enjoy writing and other
work? Yep.
I'm not sure where you think I don't work out of "passion", but no; I don't work for the sake of interest only, I work to ensure I have a future after my university degree (within E-Sports? Unlikely and this is a reality we all already know, but the projects and orgs I've worked with have earned me skills beyond the E-Sports sphere). This builds my CV and shows my ability to do more than study and get a degree. Along the way, I have fun as well and I'm sorry to here you so bitterly attack me with adjectives of "lazy" and such.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kwkQa.png)
