Ideological activism does very much affect journalistic integrity. If one supports and ideal which pushes objectively bad pieces of code as good games just because the maker of said code piece was a woman; that is lack of journalistic integrity due to over-zealous enforcement of personal ideals. In an ideal world; maybe a real trained journalist who studied and got a degree may be able to separate it; but not the few critic/hype-train conducting/untrained/closed minded/ audience loathing/ pieces of shit we have today who are still called journalists for some reason although their duty is more like PR+advertising+social justice activism.

Perfect example of what I am talking about.

Anita Sarkeesian isn't a journalist. Feminist Frequency is not a journalistic organisation. What does it matter how it is funded?

If you hate feminists and SJWs, its totally cool for you to be annoyed that Feminist Frequency receives funding. I'm annoyed when I see anti-marriage equality groups get funding, but I don't pretend its related to journalism.
I don't think that's ideological activism.

OK, if you hate capitalistic hipsters, it's totally cool for you to be annoyed that Feminist Frequency receives funding. It still has nothing to do with journalism.

It has everything to do with journalism, you may have missed that most anger of #gg was directed towards Kotaku, RPS and other PR sites that claim to be journalists without having a single journalist on board. Those are the ones constantly manipulated by the SJW's VIPs.

I think you are still implying some contradiction:

1- Incorrect implies some logical inconsistency, yet you assume I intend a universal statement that always ideological activism = unethical journalism. If you stop assuming my universal intent your counter argument is mooted. So I think this was a non sequitur due to unwarranted assumption. We agree?

2 - You mention writers which brings in a category error, as I want game journalists to be etc... Which I appreciate the wishes as indeed the zeitgeist isn't easy for finding ethical journalism - more importantly outside of gaming ofc. Back to your counterargument, you try to use a reductio to absurd that writing obviously requires subjectivity to achieve certain goals, and leverage that to apply to journalism, as if the ethical requirement on journalism avoiding subjectivity was not in question. Ergo, you beg the question through conflating journalism with writing overall. Our personal taste therefore is a non sequitur: I like writing, but if it's not objective why insist on calling it journalism? The ethos of journalism is, or rather, should be, defined by specific ethical requirements. It is anything goes nowadays, but I don't see that as a positive...

Hope that was exposed linearly enough. As a personal comment, your second paragraph is a great example of why I truly enjoy our dialogues. The amount of rhetorical tricks you apply in such short space is impressive - especially considering a third of the para was just examples of writing goals... Being a fan of rhetoric myself I don't know if you do it purposefully or instinctively but it's a pleasure to unpack.

But isn't your complaint then that you believe that otherwise non-SJW writers are being manipulated by SJWs and VIPs?

Feminist frequency can get as much money as it wants, provided it isn't "manipulating" journalists?

honestly, its not abnormal ggs priority has shifted/ is shifting. With the ethics policy changes of many sites and the writer shuffle at at the escapist, i'd say gg has achieved a decent portion of its goals there.



The biggest losing site on that list was gamasutra, not surprising leigh alexanders den. She has to be one of the most damaging of all journalists. I don't think that drop and her sacking are entirely unlinked.

something about tims joke had been gnawing at me and someone made me realize what: Timmy better hopes Anita does not start forcing her standards upon his favorite music genre. In fact, Tim being on her side might be the only thing stopping her from giving brutal legend a massive roast.

Now you're at the point where you only ask questions (in order to get more points to attack) because you have managed to argue yourself into a corner... again. Another one of those rhetorical tricks mentioned above, very nice.

Manipulation is too strong a word... the main complaint is that SJW sympathetic writers consider themselves journalists but reject the ethical obligation of compensating for said bias in their reporting.

That said it's undeniable that ideological 'enemies' are ostracized, ridiculed, etc... call it manipulation if you want...

Feminism and political correctness are leftist political stances, would we not agree? Well, when you look at any large liberal arts group or foundation, you almost always see financial backing from banks, energy companies and stupid crazy rich fucks like Warren Buffet... people and institutions usually not associated with the political left. In fact, it's those very banks and rich philanthropists that are in the cross hairs of those feminist, anti-capitalist, and other leftist organizations. While that might not be a conflict of interest to you, it doesn't mean it might not be to other people.

Do Anita or people like her have the right to make money off of this? Sure they do. I believe in a free market for all, even those that I disagree with. But if you make money in a capitalist system while downing capitalism and playing the race/class/sex/can't-we-all-just-get-along card, Then I call it bullshit and I can't fucking trust your political ideology, pure and simple. No, you do NOT get to have your cake and eat it too. Reality will intrude and force natural consequences on anyone or anything that lives contrary to the rules of the universe.

If I came to you in support of environmentalism and wanted you to join my tree hugging campaign, and then you discovered that I was being funded by the timber industry... well, would that not make you question my ethics, my believability, my goals and ambitions? I think it would. The darker and more esoteric question to ponder is WHY corporations are behind the various leftist groups that at least publicly seem to want to see them and their socioeconomic system destroyed.

Divide and conquer. It's a very popular marketing model for the economy. It makes billions every day.

1. I said its incorrect to say ideological activism is the root cause of unethical journalistic practices. I didn't say fighting SJW-ism and feminism and ethical journalism are contradictory.

2. You said "the ones (ideological activism) are the root causes of the lack of other (professional ethics)". The sentence obviously has some grammatical or spelling errors. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant?

3. Do you think people who review movies and tv shows are journalists or people who write about movies and tv shows in development are journalists? If so, for the sake of argument, then lets label them journalists. I still want those people to write interesting articles, give opinions, review things informed by their own backgrounds and beliefs and say what they want without being influenced by developers/directors/actors or distributors. I guess its not clear to me what you want.

4. Journalists should objectively and accurately report facts, but that doesn't mean they can't be subjective or should try to be objective on all things and if they are not, they are unethical. There was some discussion previously about the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. Perhaps you can identify which elements of the code you think SJW or feminist-leaning journalists breach?

5. I wasn't being rhetorical, I was giving examples of things that I like in writing which would not be permitted if writers had to be neutral and objective, as I thought you had suggested.

p.s. I think you are misusing the word mooted. Mooted refers to when someone had brought something up for discussion in the past. I think you just mean "moot".


It has the potential to be a conflict of interest, but its not a conflict of interest that has anything to do with journalism.

Its totally fine for you to treat what FF says with scepticism, knowing that they are getting money from Intel and that that money might somehow have an affect on her advocacy (not sure how exactly, but its possible), but again, nothing to do with journalism.

My only point on this is that, attacking FF for receiving money from external sources, has nothing to do with journalism.

Then what is ideological activism?Please do tell. As far as I know, its is spreading your ideology. And when a journalist who is also a critic; they have a duty to be ethical and rational to their audience. They are the people who should advice their readers on what game is good and bad. When they instead infuse their writings with nepotism and blatant disrespect for their audience (as can be seen in the journosproslist where they figuratively look upon the audience as a ''thing'' through their actions); they are unethical. When they infuse a critique with what is their own agenda; that is ideological activism; plain and simple for all to see.

I would say ideological activism is advocating an ideology expressly or implicitly (whether its feminism, masculinism or environmentalism).

I agree that a journalist has a duty to avoid nepotism.
I don't think a journalist has a duty to be rational or it is unethical to be irrational.
I don't think a journalist necessarily advices his or her readers about games or whether they are good or bad.
I don't think it is unethical for a journalist to disrespect certain members of a journalists audience.
I don't think it is unethical for a journalist to infuse a critique with their agenda (or their own political or personal ideology).

As I suggested to Brasas, check out the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. I think it highlights the problem that people who review things aren't journalists so it doesn't fit perfectly, but I would be interested in whether you think any particular parts of the code deal with "infusing critiques with agendas".

I think I already detailed the misunderstanding, which is not to say you are exclusively at fault for it :) I'm more than happy to accept the sentence is awkward as on review I missed a the, though it seems to me fairly comprehensible. Taking the opportunity, I'm going to claim the fifth re mooted, as I have no idea if moot can or not be made into a verb by formal English rules ;)

Anyway, to me you read "the ones (ideological activism) are always the root causes of the lack of the other (professional ethics)" when I meant "ideological activisms are in this particular the root causes of the lack of professional ethics". The particular ofc comes from your earlier post's context that GG is a anti SJW, anti feminist movement, less so anti unethical journalism. My argument being - which I've made to you a couple times in the past months - GG is both, they are related, whereas you kind of insist on separating them as if they were contradictory.

That said, and shifting from GG, which as you probably know is to me a secondary concern, I fully agree you don't know what I want. The thing is, I have told you several times, but again you see a contradiction, where logically there is no contradiction. I want journalism which is both good writing (per your examples) AND objective, neutral, ethical - please, please notice there's no always anywhere in that sentence. Of course reviews are more problematic than reporting, no one disputes that... of course any creative activity is informed by personal and societal context, again no one disputes that... but if we are discussing ethics - and I constantly tell you that's what I'm discussing, highlighting the word should vs is, etc... - we are kind of necessarily engaging a discussion of ideals which in practice are going to be difficult, and maybe impossible to achieve. So what?

I'll tell you what. When faced with this 'paradox', some people reject the attempt as futile and end up, surprise... as unethical pragmatic assholes which can't even imagine that the guy telling them the ideal should anyway be attempted is even being sincere... note: imo this is only a paradox for our entitlement based society where if it's hard, it's bad ergo impossible ideals are almost seen as evil, or worse ridiculed

Some disclaimers here, so you see I'm not an hypocrite. First, im not describing you, Vaina fits the bill much closer, though yes, you probably have a bit of this cynicism yourself. Secondly, and if I'm right about your cynicism this may be what is stumbling you up, I'm not making a logical appeal that these ethics are more rational than other ethics. What a fool's errand of tautology that would be... I'm perfectly happy to grant the internal logic of SJWism for lack of a better word (Marxism socialism ofc...), and I'm more than willing to play the game of rhetoric and emotional appeals in practice - I'm a nice mix of idealist passion and cynical pragmatism myself obviously - so I sincerely see objectivity as morally superior, and therefore am happy to make a flat out ethical appeal on what journalism should be like. Hopefully enough will eventually agree, as I am also ethically for democracy rather than authoritarianism. If I get my way our society will slowly start reversing the personal is political, rejection of objectivity, mission journalism, that contributed hugely to cause the mess we're in globally. As you probably have guessed, I'm definitively not in the Marxist camp of economic class analysis, I see culture and human behavior as much more important. Micro causes macro all the time. Macro only drives micro if the forcing is extreme - and I don't like extreme forcing, as I'm a live and let live tolerant laissez faire liberal.

Well, there's another rant... Hopefully enough to interest you there and I think I addressed your main points. I did mostly ignore the journalism ethics standards, if you want to analyse them in light of the tension between objectivity and mission journalism feel free. I haven't seen them but can guess they give lip service to neutrality etc, while contradicting themselves with 'comfort the afflicted, afflict the confortable' mission statements. You got to choose some ethics... or you end up with none. I'm for objectivity in journalism, always have. How about you? Are you a Marxist or not? :) ;)

PS although I agree FF is not journalism, if pressed I'd say most would define their mission as awareness and informational, when it is political and propagandist. Granted this may be myself presuming dissimulation, since I've usually found with more sincere folks (like you) getting an admission that FF is primarily political activism and only secondarily academic research is not too difficult. That said a lot of folks see FF as science and factual, when clearly it ignores most research ethics... surprisingly (not...) I see the same root cause as in the journalism ethics discussion: rejection of objectivity due to ideological bias.