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[Louella Dougans]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280356631

[Elmund Egivand]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=280356631

That looks like an awful game.

[Victoria Stecker]

So will actual evidence of collusion between different games journalists on what they should and shouldn't cover be enough?

It is possible to use different words than corruption here, but the severe implications of a unified front on what is and isn't covered across gaming media are frankly too severe to ignore. Can you imagine if all the news agencies had e-mail exchanges on what stories they should or shouldn't run? Which stories should be ignored and which should be plastered across all front pages?

Urging each other to use their platforms to push an agenda is enough for me to dismiss the entire gaming press as fucking useless at this point. The trust is exactly nil.

Miz, bear in mind that you're linking Breitbart. There are horrifically slanted online sources, and then there are horrifically slanted online sources. And then, somewhere off in the distance, is Breitbart. That website has been dedicated to shit-stirring and slander since its inception and they haven't suddenly developed journalistic standards now. For them to be bitching about someone else's journalism is hilarious - to say nothing of the mild-to-moderately mysogynistic slant several of their articles on the topic have had.

And hell, the "evidence" he cites in that first link is some of the weakest shit I've ever read, and he makes out like it's proof of some grand conspiracy.

[Mizhara]

Vic, his reporting is utter shite but the sources have been confirmed repeatedly. Ignore the cloth he weaves with flimsy threads, but do notice the threads are there.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

I refuse to give Breitbart any clicks.  If the threads are confirmed elsewhere, has any other story used any of those sources as primary sources?  Breitbart's been known to flatout make up shit.

[Kala]

It's worth reading an article by the person who set up that google group - imo it sheds some light on why it was created and what its function is, but take it as you will.

An excerpt:

This led to a diverse membership that I'd like to think engenders a sense of camaraderie and plenty of friendly (and sometimes less-than-friendly) arguments between peers. Far from colluding on some kind of coverage agenda, the 2,000+ threads and many thousands of posts in the group are more often heated arguments about issues like the correct way to handle the very kinds of ethical and coverage dilemmas that have been so in focus in recent weeks, and which I had already been writing about publicly and frequently since 2003.

Full thing:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/addressing-allegations-of-collusion-among-gaming-journalists/

[Victoria Stecker]

Vic, his reporting is utter shite but the sources have been confirmed repeatedly. Ignore the cloth he weaves with flimsy threads, but do notice the threads are there.

I'm looking at the threads. And it looks like the same usual "Hey, someone made a joke! If I use it as the caption of a picture and shout about how it was serious and not a joke then I can manufacture some outrage!!!!!!!1111" that you expect to find.

I literally do not see anything that he has quoted that actually looks scandalous. He finds something that might-possibly-maybe-if-you-squint-really-hard-and-take-three-shots-first looks bad, and then writes of BIG BOLD CONCLUSION and expects the reader to accept the conclusion and run with it without noticing that the evidence is garbage. At worst, the emails he quotes show that some journalists are actual human beings (unlike the author) who care about people and might sometimes allow that to conflict with professional ethics.

In other news, water is wet.

And yeah, Kala linked the response from the guy who started the google group in question. Breitbart's full of shit, as always.

[Mizhara]

Of course he is, but there's no denying the flat out facts that they used this mailing list to coordinate how to respond to these things unified, which is at best highly incredulous behaviour from press entities like these. At worst, it's collusion.

Dismissing it because Breitbart is a douche isn't particularly helpful, particularly when the argument then becomes that "it's okay because they decided to side with MY side. "

[Victoria Stecker]

Of course he is, but there's no denying the flat out facts that they used this mailing list to coordinate how to respond to these things unified, which is at best highly incredulous behaviour from press entities like these. At worst, it's collusion.

Dismissing it because Breitbart is a douche isn't particularly helpful, particularly when the argument then becomes that "it's okay because they decided to side with MY side. "

And that's where you and I disagree. I don't see anything there that looks suspect. A bunch of people in a specific industry talking about current events isn't collusion - it happens in every single professional realm. But the "coordinated response" simply isn't there.

If you can point to them saying "Hey, we're all going to do X together," that's collusion. But there's no evidence of that and the screenshots he's got actually point to the opposite - someone suggesting something and other people saying, "You know, that's probably not a great idea."

[Lyn Farel]

People want to see things where they aren't.

Anyway, I don't see what is the big deal when groups of people unite to decry something like what happened. Political correctness ? Maybe, but that's another issue.

Would be like world powers trying to unite against the Islamic State and being accused of collusion. lulz.

I would be more concerned if it was about the actual reviews of a game, the grades they give, etc.

[Shiori]

Gamergate supposedly isn't about the Zoe Quinn thing anymore. And yet, here it's the best and most damning evidence of corruption Milo Yiannopoulis could pull from a long-running industry discussion list with hundreds of journalists, presumably hard at work colluding and corrupting each other all the damn day long.

Why is that, do you think?

[Kala]

Of course he is, but there's no denying the flat out facts that they used this mailing list to coordinate how to respond to these things unified

I'd deny it, tbh, because a longer excerpt I've seen from that google group showed someone asking why it was ok to report on josh mattingly and whoever else, and not ok to report on Zoe Quinn's sex life.  When various others were hotly responding they are entirely different things (for ex., alleged affairs are not the same as sexual harassment) the other guy was coming back and saying "whoa, hold your horses, I'm not saying they're the same, or supporting the idea you should cover both, just making the comparison because people will ask and I want to know your position on it."

So in the bit I saw, in an article strongly stating there was collusion, was an example (in still, a very reduced snippit of exchanges within that group) of disagreement and debate. Which undermines the idea of collusion itself, to me, ironically. Or that the group is being used as a front to force ideology or agendas on an unwilling public, rather than just discussing the issues among your peers.

I.e in an article where you're producing excerpts as proof of collusion, to my mind, it undermines your argument somewhat if there's debate/disagreement within that small bit you're quoting...

Found the article in question:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/2014/09/19/inside-the-secret-world-of-games-journalism/

[Mizhara]

An argument on what consensus to reach, is the salient point. It's not a matter of them having had an internal unified front before the subject even comes up. It's that they've demonstrably had a unified front through pretty much every high profile matter that's been in the gaming press the last few years and now we see where that comes from. It might not be malicious collusion, but it's still collusion when the result is that there's a unified front on every matter.

Professionals just going to the point of debating between themselves whether something should be ignored or not is frightening, frankly.

[Shiori]

What's scary about adults - professionals, no less - having an equitable discussion?

[Mizhara]

It's scary when it's a discussion on whether or not to cover the news. What bits to cover and what bits shouldn't be covered. This should not be difficult to see the issue with.