
Access Denied: The Media, After the Press - samclemens
http://www.theawl.com/2015/12/access-denied
======
CM30
An interesting article. The point about 'access' being less of a thing now and
both celebrities and companies using social media to share information to
directly can also be seen with Nintendo, who went from sharing information to
the media to releasing Nintendo Direct videos and letting the whole world get
the news at the same time. Why give the press any power when your fans will
share all the information anyway?

However, I really disagree with their picture of Kotaku. They (and Gawker in
general) are not good journalists. They are clickbait writing, reader
attacking bullies that thrive on lies and rumours. Was the blacklisting a bad
thing? Maybe, but it couldn't have happened to better people.

Also, rather sad they just had to toss a GamerGate reference in there, or
associate them with the industry. It's far, far more complex (and messed up)
than that.

~~~
striking
Some outlets tend to be disinterested in the games themselves, and instead
write hitpieces that undermine companies for a couple million uniques. Where
game interviews are more about how a game could be construed as sexist [1]
rather than the game itself.

If you keep calling companies sexist, they're not going to talk to you.
They're under no obligation to do so.

If you've given a game a fair shake and say it sucks, then I agree, they
shouldn't take away your access. But if all you're going to do is try and poke
holes in it, it's hard to believe a company would want to help you do that.

1: [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/22/blizzard-on-
heroe...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/22/blizzard-on-heroes-of-
the-storm-female-designs-in-mobas/) (see the end)

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danso
Great read. On the topic of the gaming press, sure, it's sad that they're put
on a tight leash by the industry...but they have always been on a leash,
haven't they? Kotaku complained about being put on the Fallout 4 blacklist
(ostensibly because they were the first to break the news of its
development)...but in the weeks since, have done almost nothing but wall-to-
wall shitposts giving attention to Fallout 4 -- one of their latest pieces of
journalism? "Fallout 4, Reimagined In Counter-Strike" [1]

Kotaku has some measure of control over this vicious cycle: stop giving
Fallout 4 fanboyish coverage. In fact, it's a bit sad watching them make a
principled stand for an independent press [2], but then, on a normal day, just
post constantly about what cute meme they discovered in a mass-marketed AAA
game, as if there were no other things to talk about in the gaming universe.
Kotaku is not only biting the hand that has stopped feeding it, but then goes
back to lick the hand as if that would change things.

The Verge's complaint about not being allowed a pre-release review of Star
Wars is also weak. The Verge, Polygon (which was supposed to be the thinking
person's gaming press but has devolved into a lesser IGN, covering comics and
games), i09, and so forth, have done little but give Star Wars fawning hype in
the lead-up months -- apparently thinking that what makes them different from
just a fanboy site is that they will get to review the movie beforehand and
thus have a controlling impact on that movie's box office success. Well, now
that Disney/Abrams et al. have wisely realized that they could get the best of
both worlds -- fawning hype without the chance of a non-positive review --
maybe the entertainment/tech sites will wise up and not spend so much of their
readers' attention on Star Wars updates. But I doubt it...those Star Wars
posts bring in pageviews...for these blogs to willingly cut that off in order
to pursue something better would be like expecting newspapers to make their
classifieds free (classified ad revenue made up as much as 25% of newspaper
revene) when Craigslist first appeared on the scene.

[1] [http://steamed.kotaku.com/fallout-4-reimagined-in-counter-
st...](http://steamed.kotaku.com/fallout-4-reimagined-in-counter-
strike-1746326285)

[2] [http://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-
journalism-1743526293](http://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-
journalism-1743526293)

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iandanforth
Save yourself the time and don't read this article. It goes round and round
the same point.

Social media makes it easy to spoon feed pablum to the public and the
incumbent intermediaries of pablum are threatened by this.

~~~
mintplant
I think it's worth reading part of the way through, but the author doesn't
seem to realize when they've exhausted their point and should start wrapping
up the article.

~~~
RyJones
Agreed. The hand of a strong editor was needed.

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forgottenpass
None of: celebrity mags, campaign horse race coverage, games reporting, or
Gawker Media have anything to do with journalism.

They're glorified content farms fighting to show their ads next to things
people want to be made public anyway. Their net contribution to humanity is
probably negative. Fuck it, let them burn.

