January 29, 2008 -
We didn't catch yesterday's Live Desk program on Fox News, but a sharp-eyed GamePolitics reader wrote in to tell us that host Martha MacCallum made mention of the Mass Effect debacle. From the e-mail we received: Martha MacCallum just wrapped up today's Live Desk with Cooper Lawrence's quote from the New York Times.
GP: That would be Ms. Lawrence's admission to the NYT's Seth Schiesel that she was totally winging it with her inaccurate remarks about Mass Effect...
Martha also reiterated that they had invited "Microsoft, BioWare, and EA" to appear on the show.
Still no apology [from Fox News]... I thought it was pretty dirty that they're letting Cooper take the fall. Personally, I feel that Martha's comments on the game BEFORE the debate/interviews were trend-setting, and Cooper was brought on with a pre-existing mindset that Fox planted.
GP: Agreed - and thanks for sending that in!
UPDATE: G4 has a transcript of Martha MacCallum's comments:
Last week we aired a segment about a video game called Mass Effect. There has been some criticism from the gaming community about the segment – on Friday, Cooper Lawrence who was the guest who spoke-out against the game, had this to say in an interview with the New York Times:
(MacCallum reading Lawrence’s comments from Jan. 26th NYT article): “I recognize that I misspoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I have seen the game and seen the sex scenes, its kind of a joke. Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had had heard, and they had said its like pornography. But its not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.”
MacCallum: That from Cooper Lawrence in the New York Times.
MacCallum: Again, we are inviting a representative from Microsoft, or BioWare or EA, the creators and distributors of this game for an interview with me, on this show to give their perspective of this story...
Comments
Re: Report: Fox News Host Talks Mass Effect on Yesterday's Show
That's the trouble with office desks personalities... You never know when they will "blow up". Be careful... Ticking bomb walking...
This may be the closest we will get to an apology and a retraction from Fox News, so savor it while you can.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
I do feel bad that Cooper Lawerance is being made to take the fall for Fox, but she does deserve some of the blame. Fox did not make her say the things she said. If she was so concerned about integrity, she would have said she didn't know enough about the subject to comment or refused to take part in the "debate".
Why was she even used as an expert in this debacle? With books like "Been there, done that, kept the Jewelry" and "The Fixer-upper Man: Turn Mr. Maybe into Mr. Right in Five Easy Steps" what possible knowledge could she contribute to any topic on video games? Actually, with those books, it makes her comments about video games making women look like property and objects of sexual desire ironic.
Long story short. Forgive Cooper, but don't forget what she said or that she was wrong. Hold Fox responsible for its lies and slander and demand an apology and retraction.
Here's a link to a pro-Ron Paul website that has lots of Fox News internal phone numbers, as well as phone numbers of Fox News sponsers.
http://nyletterpress.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/ron-paul-fox-phone-blitz/
Also, heres a link to "The Live Desk" (the show that picked up the Mass Effect story) on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Live_Desk
Of course, I hope Fox still has plenty of trouble over this. Hopefully it will help prevent lies being told as fact in the future.
As other's have said: "It's a trap!" Still, that said, forwarned is foremarmed, so maybe evasive action isn't required.
Probably not, thought. People will say anything for publicity!
We'll be saying more about this...
Look, Fox News is evil in this, yes. But don't let Cooper Lawrence off the hook when she hasn't even apologized, she merely acknowledged she was wrong. And once again, would she have made that statement and looked into it if gamers didn't proactively attack her pocketbook? She is a shallow, petty bitch who saw some backlash attacking the credibility she needs to peddle her wares across the daytime television circuit and she quelled the backlash.
Simple verb tenses, Fox News. Learn 'em.
As for Cooper, perhaps she can take solace in the fact that the people who'd buy her books and otherwise listen to her may not care too much about her views on video games, and the gamers paying attention to this fiasco know that it's not entirely her fault and she's largely taking the fall for Fox.
Granted, that does beg the question of how much Cooper knew prior to agreeing to be on the show. If she knew she was arguing against a game she had no knowledge of prior to agreeing then I've no sympathy for her at all, but if she agreed and then Fox told her, moments before the interview, that she needed to argue against (nonexistant) pornographic games then it's Fox's doing. And quite a nasty bit of trickery that is, too, slandering the game and otherwise promoting your own views through someone else so that no one can actually blame you for the statements.
I imagine that they called her and told her that they needed "expert" comments for a program. It's likely that they didn't tell her what she would be talking about until right before the show. The producers have all the control over these segments and they will intentionally keep people in the dark or feed them false information in order to create their version of the "truth." Odds are that she didn't even know she was going to be arguing about a game until right before the show.
The real bullshit is that Fox invited EA to come on to discuss their claims even though the claims made by Fox are objectively, verifiably false. Any professional news service would immediately issue a retraction and an apology over such grievous errors proving, once again, that Fox News is not a news channel.
EA should pull all News Corp advertising and sue Fox News.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314541,00.html
Back in December, Fox News's website posted a favorable review of Mass Effect. Their own guy played the game and pretty much said it was awesome.
Weird.
Her wikipedia page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_MacCallum
QFT: Long story short. Forgive Cooper, but don’t forget what she said or that she was wrong. Hold Fox responsible for its lies and slander and demand an apology and retraction.
It makes me sick just thinking about it...
-Fox didn't attack the game. They paid Cooper to do it for them.
-Cooper's already apologized. Even if you wanted to go after her, it'd be a douche move on EA/Bioware's part - and EA doesn't typically have that much goodwill to spend.
-The most questionable statement made is that Mass Effect has sexually explicit material - which it does. Kind of. Some very puritanical but reasonable people might find the material highly inappropriate, and Fox wanted to warn those people about said inappropriate game. It sounds like a flimsy argument, but it's good enough to withstand a defamation lawsuit.
And honestly, that's a good thing. Game critics should be allowed to criticize games without fear of lawsuit. If this is legally considered slander, then it's not much of a stretch to suggest that saying Manhunt 2 is nothing but grotesque, senseless, and disgustingly graphic violence is also slander.
Incredible that anyone still wants to go on air with them.
I can.
First, we'll hear watchdog groups screaming to give it an AO rating. Then, all news media will give their bullsh- er I mean unbiased take on the game. Wait, why does that sound familiar?
I can.
First, we'll hear all the watchdog groups threatening the ESRB to give it an AO rating. Then, all the news outlets will give their bullsh- er I mean unbiased report on the game. Wait, why does that sound so familiar?
EZK: Fixed that for you.
I also think it would be good for EA/Bioware to go on with them. Yes, it might be a trap, but they now have both the NYT article and Fox's retraction of the comments to back themselves up. They can now get up and talk about the misperceptions and lies surrounding games, rather than defending themselves constantly about "alleged" content in them.
They have a chance to expose the bias for what it is.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314541,00.html
While I understand that the two evaluations of the game may be mutually exclusive (one as the "best" and one as the "porniest") and this article wasn't actually written by Faux News staff, it still strikes a note of irony in my mind. All Lawrence had to do was read Faux News' own website to realize that maybe the position that she'd been asked to take was questionable.
Faux News dropped the ball on this one, true (although I have to wonder if they every had a ball to drop in the first place...they've dropped so many already). However, I can't say that I feel a bit sorry for Ms. Lawrence, as it was her responsibility to do the research before opening her pie hole. Unfortunately, this is probably the most we'll ever see out of Faux in the way of a retraction or apology, but at least they admitted in perhaps an offhand way that their reporting was inaccurate and evidence-free. Maybe that will turn at least a few gaping-mouthed Faux-cult followers into questioners...maybe?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc_FlnjYkTg
yes.
Second of all, it would be cool to see her get married to Anderson Cooper.
Speaking as a PR person, if I was Cooper, I would do some interviews both in print and of TV and blow the shit storm back at Fox. I would explain preair coaching, tainted environment, angle focus, talking points -etc... Then let's see if Fox tries to sue her for slander and libel. EA and or MS should be talking with her now - secretly of course. As pretty as she is she would make for a nice "innocent" victim is this whole torrid affair. Hell she could even get a second book out of it all if she spins it correctly.
If she was really sorry, she would apologize to Bioware, EA, and Microsoft. She would explain what research she was referring to or more importantly, where this "study that came out of Maryland" came from. This isn't her field, where would she have access to such a study from? Sounding like Bartley all over again. And most importantly, she should apologize to Geoff Keighly for her blatantly unethical debate practices displayed there.
Unfortunately, she has done NONE of these things. All she has done is said she was mislead on Mass Effect, attacked Fox programming, and simply laughed it off. She pretended to be an expert with zero knowledge of what she was talking about and got caught. So she retracted her statement and tried to push the blame towards Fox.
It's simple, people. If a child stands up in class and reads a letter handed to him by his classmate and says "The teacher is a douchebag guzzling whore," does this child suddenly get off the hook because the other student told them to say it? Regardless of who told them to say it, he said it.