Indeed

A agree to them, but quite a lot you list is subjective. For example truth, fairness and neutrality. these are subjective terms. And yes, these are all signs of good journalism. I will add ethical to the list also (which is another subjective term...). All the points on your list is actual subjective, and have nothing to do with objectivity... perhaps only inform...

This I do not believe. As an experiment, take the new Hatred game - what would an objective review of that game look like?

Why don't you reply to what I posted to you earlier? Are you satisfied we don't disagree anymore on that? :)

Anyway, you are being heavily reductionist in what you are considering "objective" to mean. I just posted a few words to Amok, and maybe we can consider them for now? We can also dig for some definition in wiki, or online dictionaries if you prefer... so I said being objective relates to being neutral, fair, informing and true.

Before we proceed, a strawman is if I attribute to you a position you don't hold. The fact you think I'm wrong about objectivity does not make it a strawman at all... as to it being a fallacy, well, let's see if you can prove it. Should be easy if you're so sure about it heh?

It's not unethical to think differently. That is a strawman by the way, since I never said or implied it. As I just told Amok, diversity is easy: We are all unique and therefore everything we do is affected by our subjective lenses. Hence the ideal of objectivity, so we reach farther than the individual, into the universal. Into truths larger than ourselves, into fairness that is universal.

Questions?

In what way, then, is Gias being 'unethical'?

From the end. There is no unique objective review of Hatred, the game... any review which is fair, true, informative, etc... is objective enough. Do you remember my dissection of a Zero Punctuation review? It was an objective review... it seems to me you guys constantly assume objectivity means no diversity, no humanity... ridiculous, no one is saying that. It's all in your mind.

Now, me saying: I don't like the game is neither objective, nor a review. Me saying I don't like games where you kill civilians is objective, and at least partially a review. Do you see the difference? In one of those the reader actually learned some facts about the game. In the first, the only fact learned is about the reviewer...

Moving on to objectivity or not of truth, fairness and neutrality. What exactly do you mean? :) Are we going back to DNA evidence? Don't you think there is a unique truth which may be interpreted in multiple ways? Do you actually go full pomo into multiple realities, rather than multiple views on Reality? I mean, sure the world and relaity is messy... but to give it up because it's hard...

Anyway, I'll hold on fairness and neutrality because to some extent they depend on the uniqueness of reality. Feel free to expand what you mean when you say they are subjecitive if you'd rather.
As a journalist? :) He let his ideological or political beliefs get in the way of representing the game fairly.

He might be a wonderful ethical human, super nice person, full of loving intent and unicorns and rainbows everywhere... but he didn't do a very good job with a significant part of his review. Talk to Kurina about his specific issues. I'm prettty sure I already told you I don't know the details, but I think it was her that was happy to post in depth about that topic.

And by the way, if he was in a specialist publication, dedicated to such agendas, his review would not be so unethical. But as far I know the place he writes is still a generalist publication for gaming... less and less so I guess, but still...

Suggest we move into chat... I'm developing some split personality trying to carry such a conversation with both of you simultaneously.

And I hope you see there never will be... but then, if there never will be, why say we need? This is the pretense.

I have not seen any such discussion, I have ignored this thread for some while.... but are you mixing up "objectivity" with "things I agree with"?

Now, me saying: I don't like the game is neither objective, nor a review. Me saying I don't like games where you kill civilians is objective, and at least partially a review. Do you see the difference? In one of those the reader actually learned some facts about the game. In the first, the only fact learned is about the reviewer...

There never will be objectivity, because objectivity is reality. no one can replicate reality. The thing about the DNA evidence is that DNA is truth, DNA do not lie - but the people investigating it (following strict, 'objective' guidelines) still manages to reach different conclusions. Each o the DNA analysts believe they are reporting an objective truth. This has nothing to do about individual realities (though you can go there also...) but that people are inherently subjective and not two people looking at the same thing will ever see the thing exactly the same way, same comes to games and journalism. "truth, fairness and neutrality" are subjective terms.

Yes, never will, and that's great. Perfection being unattainable is fine. The value is in the voyage. But I still defend the ideal as destination, because saying we should be objective is not saying we should be an amorphous borg like blob. Never said that, never will. Understand that, or you will never understand what I'm actually saying.

Of course I'm not mixing objectivity and disagreement, that's just your constant suspicion of my motives rearing its head again. And it's ironic, as I'll imply in the end. For example, I have no problem killing civilians in GTA. Yet somene that dislikes a game because of that and states so is being objective, per the sentence I used as example a short while ago. There is a factual reason explaining/justifying the opinion. Otherwise maybe it's just prejudice? Not very fair is it when one pre judges something... ;)

Objectivity is the pursuit of representing and understading reality better, without ego. Reality is reality. The two words / concepts are different, even if they relate to each other...

So again, diversity, being a consequence of subjectivity and humanity, does not disprove objectivity, does not imply a rejection of objectivity. You are trying to box objectivity as being just the negation of subjective as in excluding subjectivity completely, whereas I'm saying they can overlap.

Ok, consider this and it may be a good example. Perfection, like objectivity, is impossible. So suppose I say the Witcher 3 review is imperfect. What is so controversial then? You just agreed it is impossible. Then suppose I say why I think it is imperfect. You disagree with me. :)

But instead of going deeper into why you disagree, you say: there's no such thing as perfection, so your reasons are bullshit. That's basically what you're doing mate... it's very tautological. And ironic for someone that pretty much suspects me of camouflaging my disagreements. :)

Well, yeah, it seems to me, also, that Polygon is positioning itself to cultivate a specialist and more niche audience - which goes back to what I was saying earlier about my theory is that a lot of this unrest is caused by the process of the gaming audience differentiating and diverging as it grows beyond the traditional 'Maxim meets New Scientist' demographic and I see absolutely no reason it shouldn't especially when a lot of you guys seem so enamored with sites like Reaxxion that fulfill equally extremist but opposite niches

Maybe Polygon's real crime is not going far ENOUGH - only dipping its toe in the water and being half-arsed

nah, it more boils down to that -" Subjectivity is inherent in humanity. Journalism is a human activity. Journalism will always be subjective." All human activity will always be subjective, therefore objectivity does not exist. You may dream about it, but it will never happen (and arguably it is for the best. A truly objective review would be very boring). So you can not claim that any review is objective, nor ask for it (or it may happen...)

And again, the "subjective" police attempt to distort the discussion.

You seem to get hung up on the concept, that because people are flawed they cannot be 100% objective about anything. So what? This doesn't stop the Society of Professional Journalists and other actual journalistic organizations from striving toward objectivity. And these people know far more about it that you.

Substitute objectivity for "truth" and you get a better understanding.

The Arthur Gies review, where he claims that Witcher 3 is misogynistic, the part where he claims because the "wife beater" gets to defend his position. He deliberately left out that the positions of the wife and child were also included and that Geralt even had some things to say about it in terms of dialog. This is a perfect example of intentional distortion. Lying. Sensationalizing. All through being intentionally unobjective.

Objectivity is attempting to write the truth of the matter. A review can be more or less objective. Most people reading that review see the problem. By cherry-picking and distorting the content, by describing the content as worse than it actually is, by using a third of the article on just this one misreported issue, Arthur Gies is being unobjective. He is sensationalizing, lying, being unfair.

As to Fever, he falls in this category. Time and again, he comes back just to argue. He never addresses our specific points, and comes back a day later and pretends like nothing was said and start again with his day 1 "there is no such thing as objectivity", "you are trying to censor journalists", blah blah blah, the same fallacious arguments that have been addressed.

And Amok has the same problem, everything is an absolute to him. If it can't be 100% truthful, then he claims their is no such thing as objectivity. But clearly there are degrees to truth. Someone can be more truthful than others, and some reviews can do a better job at revealing the truth.

Just because people make mistakes and aren't all-knowing doesn't mean that some people aren't more truthful than others. You use lack of perfection as an excuse for people to justify their lying. Just look at what Arthur Gies writes, how he leaves out all reasonable arguments for why Witcher 3 might not be sexist and you can see how he is advocating, cherry-picking, preaching for his cause all at the expense of the truth.

There is a clear difference between objectivity and being ethical. Talking from and talking for one side is unethical in journalism. This isn't supposed to be a debate, and stories of both sides must be told. I see no description on how men are treated in TW3's universe in Gies's review. Its a natural thing to analyze the living conditions of both males and females when one is about to spit out the bib and cry misogyny. Misogyny itself is not a concrete term.

Eg; in a world where , say everyone from a particular defeated empire are forced into slavery, it would be sensationalism to to say women get whipped because men and children also get whipped; because again, they're ALL slaves.

I see none of that in Gies's review. Just picking out one thing that is a real-world social issue, in a medieval fantasy game and then calling it their pallet of Hitler-level-evil words is NOT ethical journalism in both the bias to one side and their story and to the lack of research or intention to not look at or listen to the other side.

No it isn't, it is unbalanced...

fabricating evidence, for example, or pressurising witnesses, that would be unethical. Just reporting one side is an unbalanced report, which is not unethical. In fact, most journalism is unbalanced.

From here : http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

-''Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story.''

Indeed. And that is correct. Notice how it does not say "make sure represent both sides" or something similar. The closest you would probably get is something like "Seek Truth and Report It".

What? Did you read it? Where is the context? I can say a female friend of mine experiences hardship, and claim her parents are guilty of child abuse and not say they both work 9 hour Mon-Sat?