A Civil “Discussion” of Game Journalism
The past few weeks have seen another brief resurgence of “discussion” of the state of game journalism, this time brought on by a series of articles by GameDaily’s Chris Buffa. I put “discussion” in quotes above because the back-and-forth has generally consisted of Buffa giving his take on some problems with game journalism (and their potential solutions), and other journalists screaming “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO?”
I’d tend to agree that Buffa’s pieces are a little too general and simplistic, and don’t really break any new ground in analyzing the state of video game journalism. But responding to such an analysis with bitter personal attacks that go above and beyond the actual ideas discussed in the articles shows a petty defensiveness that is unbecoming of any writer. I understand that the same old complaints can get tiresome sometimes, but is a little civility to much to ask when responding to such claims? Isn’t it possible to focus on the content of an argument without descending immediately into cursing and name-calling?
Be as cruel as you want when talking about a person’s arguments and opinions. But when it comes to the actual person themself, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
on August 10th, 2006 at 11:34 am
My big issues with Buffa’s series:
1) Why a three article series? To justify that kind of wordiness, there better be something really insightful here beyond “why don’t journalists write better?”.
2) It is never clear (at least to me) what his idea of “good writing” is. In the first article he cites a few names but never identifies what makes them good writers or points to representative articles. As for bad writing, there is no shortage of that of course.
3) His advice (”read more”, “don’t hit on PR girls”, “editors should find better writers”) is kind of laughable. I applaud the whole “read more” thing since that’s what I tell people who ask me - but I wouldn’t tell an experience writer that since if they don’t know that now, they’ll never listen to me now. That’s newbie advice, as is “style manuals are good”.
on August 10th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
“Be as cruel as you want when talking about a person’s arguments and opinions. But when it comes to the actual person themself, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Journalists attack one another ALL THE TIME. An attack on a journalists’ work from another journalist is an attack on that journalist.
It’s fantastic when they fight… it exposes not only the flaws in people’s writing, but also exposes the hypocracy of journalistic ethics.
And, like the Kotaku v IGN thing a while ago, James ‘Milkman’ Mielke’s piece is on his own personal blog, so shouldn’t he have the right to say what he wants?
I understand the concept that one should always be professional, but think it’s a whack concept. You do need an outlet to vent. For myself I rant on messageboards - am I being professional on them? Of course not! Should I be seen as professional on them? OF COURSE NOT!
I agree with Troy too - Why 3 articles? And why doesn’t he give some examples of good writing?
on August 21st, 2006 at 8:28 am
People’s problems were because he wasn’t interested in actually improving games writing, but just getting as many hits as possible.
It was the journalistic equivalent of writing a column called “Your Mother’s A CunT” and then sitting back and cackling.
KG