The Senior Director of Communications for the ESA, Dan Hewitt, sent a letter to Joystiq stating, "If the ESA posted a blog and called it a news site, journalists would rightfully balk and it wouldn't pass a smell test. Remarkably, GamePolitics doesn't face the same scrutiny even though it's funded by the ECA and tainted with anti-ESA vitriol. At the end of the day, calling GamePolitics a news site is as laughable as saying there's a Cuban free press."
Hewitt points to GP's recent coverage of the ESA saying that the site isn't a news site, but a membership recruitment tool for the site's parent company, the Entertainment Consumers Association.
Update: Two separate statements from GP and the ECA can be found after the break. GP has also amended its headline.
"GamePolitics is the same news site it has always been, covering the nexus between video games and politics. Since acquiring GamePolitics in October, 2006, ECA president Hal Halpin has insisted that GP retain its editorial independence.
I suspect that, given its current difficulties retaining member companies, the ESA is uncomfortable with the level of scrutiny directed at it by some news outlets. Ultimately, an organization like the ESA is judged by its performance, and, right now, it's fair to call that performance into question. When a politician is keynoting E3, that's worth questioning. When the politician has made divisive comments, like those attributed to Gov. Perry, that's really worth questioning."
-- Dennis McCauley, GamePolitics.com
Full Disclosure: GP's Dennis McCauley writes Joystiq's The Political Game.
The ECA's statement:
"We were shocked by the quotes that the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) provided to Joystiq about GamePolitics this afternoon," said Heather Ellertson, VP of Marketing for the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA). "Comparing a non-profit consumer advocacy organization to communist Cuba is unprofessional to say the least... especially given the broad support that the ECA and our consumer members have shown for the ESA. We stand behind our publications and their editors and appreciate their talent and dedication."
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Seriously, everyone needs funding eventually, especially a site as heavily trafficked as GP has been. If the ECA wants to back them, *and* the ECA is focused on speaking out for gamers in general, to me this makes sense.
Mind you, I'm not part of the ECA, I'm just saying it makes sense for the two to work together, since GP has tended to bring news relevant to gamers, from within the political arena, and provide it in a way that works rather well. I've been a reader/commenter on GP since the LiveJournal days, and I've never seen GP be anything but up front about things reported there.
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Every form of government fails in one way or another.
"no press can be objective" seems to have recently become an excuse for "well, if no press can be objective, lets not even try, and lets just be as partisan as we can be."
The fact that people no longer even expect the press to TRY to be balanced is pretty worrying... at least in the past this expectation went some way to keeping them honest.
That said, the biggest problem I see today is that people don't realise the difference between bloggers and journalists. Its very worrying when people can't see the difference between a site like Gamepolitics or Joystiq and a legitimate press outlet. It means they aren't informed enough to make evaluations about what they read.
I would rather the press show it's biases than pretend to be "fair and balanced". I know that Fox News is far right; I know that the New York Times is far left; therefore, I know how to interpret what they tell me. Ideally, yes, it would be nice for the media to be objective, but it won't happen. Sorry, but it just isn't possible.
And an expectation of "balance" has never kept the media honest; it just made them choose their words more carefully.
You guys know that the USA is NOT a democracy, right? It's a Republic. Remember that little part in the Pledge of Allegience? You know, back before it wasn't politically incorrect to say it in school?
"...and for the Republic for which it stands..."
But he DID make that statement.
However, I don't see the issue here. I've known many Christians, friend and acquantance alike, who believe those who refuse to accept Jesus Christ as their savior are headed for a fiery torturous eternity. How is this any different?
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There's the story. I don't know if Joystiq is saying he didn't say this which is highly irresponsible journalism and exhibits a questionable bias towards the ESA or if Joystiq is intimating that Rick Perry didn't say the quote in question at a gamer-type event.
The latter would be true.
and then goes on to say that Rick Perry didn't disagree with what was said, but it doesn't quote Rick Perry as saying "non-christians will burn in hell". Regardless of what someone implies you can't make up quotes, that is bad reporting no matter how big a nut job Rick Perry may or may not be.
Perhaps he did say it, but that link you posted doesn't go anywhere to showing that he did make those comments.
Thank god Perry has apologists like you guys.
So... souls not getting into Heaven is the same as people being so inferior that they should be killed? Yeah, good call on that.
I kinda got what you were trying to say, but I have to disagree. "souls not getting into Heaven" should be "souls not getting into Heaven because they're not Christian, implying that all non-Christians are inferior". Then it kind of IS the same. Kind of, but not really.
He's there, as I understand it, to talk about how Texas has helped create a suitable environment for game developers. As long as he sticks to the topic and doesn't go off on a right-wing tirade or about how great John McCain is, I don't see the problem with him speaking.
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Us "right wingers" don't like MCCain, or bill o'reilly either, please quit attributing these morons to our views.
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You got that right. ESA's comments towards GamePolitics (and ECA by extension) are pot calling the kettle black.
Regardless, GamePolitics.com doesn't really have an agenda ESA claims it has. It reports on game industry happenings where they intersect with politics. And it does that better than any other news outlet, incl. the "real" media. It's a quality operation through and through.
I would urge ESA to stop stomping on consumers' rights and in general being the little brother of MAFIAA, if they wish GP to stop reporting on news that ESA is doing so.
If you break the story down it goes like this: This person is doing a keynote at E3, he is religious and some of the things in his religion could be offensive to people of other religions... therefore we believe he should not be allowed to speak.
Tenuous argument at best.
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And besides, any religion that puts George W Bush in Heaven and Ghandi in Hell, I take offense to.
Wow. That's some excellent trolling.
I haven't heard an update since then, to be honest, so it's likely much higher now.
I say "likely" because it's always possible that they're coming back as zombies. Should that scenario be playing out, we'll have to dispatch Leon Kennedy and Frank West into the heart of Babylon.
Chris Redfield would join them, but he's too busy killing the blacks.
I think that statement needs a source. Do you have a link by chance?
"In accordance with these views, in 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (Non-Violence in Peace and War):[28]
'I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions...If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.'
In a post-war interview in 1946, he offered a view at an even further extreme:
'The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.'"
"Live free or die: death is not the worst of evils"
"Give me liberty, or give me death"
Our American revolution was spurred on by the same sentiments. Dying at the hands of one's opressors is much different than killing oneself.
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I don't see why it's perfectly cool for GP to run an editorial on all the witnesses Jack Thompson tried to subpeona but not to call into question moves like this from the ESA.