February 5, 2008 -
Watching Fox News’ recent Mass Effect hatchet job, it became immediately apparent that the network knew nothing about the game and was in fact making outrageous claims about non-existent sexual escapades.Perhaps the most frightening thing is that when confronted with the facts afterward the network didn’t seem to care that it got the story wrong.
Perhaps it should.
Next Generation editor Colin Campbell opines that mainstream media is only hurting itself when it sensationalizes, scaremongers, and flat-out lies about video games.
The reason the [network execs and journalists haven’t] gotten with it on games is because they don’t play them; and neither does their rarefied social circle.
This is, in fact, a failure on their part because it’s not normal NOT to play games. Playing games is the thing regular people do. So when the networks start blustering about how it’s “interactivity” or “gore” or “porn” in games that does the damage, they look like idiots. And not just to some hardcore fraternity of die-hard gamers, but to millions of their viewers.
Only someone hopelessly out of touch could hold these antique opinions.
AE: There’s no doubt that a large and significant percentage of the population plays video games but I have to wonder just how many of those gamers are familiar enough with Mass Effect to recognize that Fox’s report was full of it.
Campbell also takes news networks like Fox to task for being inconsistent in their concern for our “moral well-being.” He points out that extreme violence and sexual imagery are commonplace on their shows and that other forms of media such as books, music, and movies are not being held to the same standard as games.
All of the above media businesses are self-regulated with rules in place that attempt to prevent the wrong people seeing inappropriate content. None of them succeed at this any better than games; and yet it’s games that get the brunt of the networks’ outrage.
-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen
Comments
I would also agree that they see video games as competition because it's using the same big tube. Ratings mean money, and less money means less jobs.
Wait a second, this is starting to sound familiar. It's like Americans vs. illegal immigrants in the workforce. Are some news networks really afraid of the video game industry taking away their jobs?
The only thing that can go worse is if a news network special report interrupts your regularly scheduled video game session (it happened in Tiny Toons)!
It's likely also that all they see in video games is competition. To the execs video games likely take time that people could be spending watching their program and getting depressed at all the stupidity in the world and about war and crime rape and murder
Frightening, yes. Surprising, no. Fox!=News.
"It’s likely also that all they see in video games is competition. To the execs video games likely take time that people could be spending watching their program and getting depressed at all the stupidity in the world and about war and crime rape and murder"
That's a good point. All the news stations run negative stories about each other, so why not game too. After all, those pesky game systems are hogging the TV screen just as much.
"and neither does their rarefied social circle."
This trend of elitist news reporting is not new. Every new social trend has been met with fear and warning.
How many times have commentors on this site alone complained that any idiot could go find the "sex scene" online with no issue, and realize immediately how bunk the accusations are? I'd say this supports Campbell's argument, because you rarely need to explain this to someone accustomed to gaming in general.
I don't think I have the same optimism that Campbell has on the growing influence of the newer generations, but the increasing confrontation with the TV news does tend to signal that. Same as political blogs, which a few years ago were pathetic jokes to the TV media, and now are hostile invaders. Some of those blogs like to repeat the same Ghandi quote: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." Definitely a positive outlook of the future.
Colin Campbell - Bruce Campbell - Evil Dead - Ash Williams - Ashley Williams - Mass Effect
Let's see how long it takes Fox to make that connection and blow it out of proportion.
This isn't just games. I've found that if I pay attention to the media when it talks about any topic I actually have knowledge of they almost always get it wrong.
They treat games the same way they treat any technology (or science) story,... start with an idea, blur facts, and try to make it accessible and rating grabbing. I am guessing the assumption is that so little of their target audience has real knowledge of the topic that it gets more ratings for less effort to 'wing it' then do accurate reporting.
I personally feel that you'd get better, unbiased news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and that's just sad.
I can speculate that they know there isn't a strong, tightly-knit industry there like there is with the MPAA/RIAA, but there is only so much speculation can do. What I do know is what I've been told, specifically by Illinois governor Blagojevich's office. In a letter I sent in April of 2005, around the time that Safe Games Illinois was launched, I asked a few questions, one asking why laws were being passed against video games but not for other industries, and this is the response I received:
"Your first question deals with existing laws that limit minors’ access to materials such as books or movies with violent or sexually explicit content. Illinois law already restricts minors’ access to certain harmful material, as dictated by the state’s Harmful Material Statute (720 ILCS 5/11-21). This law prohibits minors from buying a broad range of sexually explicit material - materials such as pornographic books or magazines. So laws do in fact exist that prohibit children’s access to media other than video games."
While movies and books can have all the sex and violence they want and still get rated R without laws preventing children from getting access to them, there are laws dealing in pornography and minors' access to it. Fine. But why is it that a video game with less supposedly-harmful content than a non-regulated movie or a book gets so much attention from the media and government? It's not porn, but the media and politicians would like us to think they are. They want us to hold video games up to stricter lines of morals and decency.
Why? I think it is due to two things: because there is still a general perception that video games are only for kids, and because politicians and media corporations have something significant to gain from scaring people who have that perception.
Bottom line folks is that as much as we'd (gamers) would like to think we've got some sort of vocal mass, we simply don't have the numbers. For each one of us there are, in all probability, thousands of people who don't game or give 2 shakes about any game (video or not) that doesn't involve cards or casino's. Now I don't have any hard facts to back those numbers up. I simply know that if I walk around my rather small work place, I'm the only one that knows, for example, what HellGate London or COD4 is and I'm outnumbered over 200-1 in a fairly large state capitol. So the idea of a major network of any sort reacting to our, in my opinion, smallish numbers is pretty far-fetched.
What better way to distract people's attention away from your own shortcomings than by creating a monster that is so easy to demonize? Many (voting) parents don't play video games, or understand the draw of gaming, and so don't even begin to understand the topic. Faux and others are only using that to their advantage so that they can continue to exploit sex and violence to make vast fortunes, all the while pointing at video games and saying, "Look thither! For THAT is the demon that makes your children ill-behaved!"
I know, pretty obvious. Just hacks my cackles that so many people have their heads so firmly planted in the sand that evil people like the Faux executive staff can get away with crap like this.
I never thought of the media vs. media angle, but that makes a lot of sense. Report after report keeps coming out about viewership slipping for network television as a whole. So, when interactive media is the one taking away your viewers then attack them as some moral enemy to society. Food for thought.
You point out a group or a item and say "There is the cause of all the problems!" and it gives people a vent, you can control them by saying "If you do this, then we will be fighting the problems!" It's a lot like what the government is doing with terrorists.
Basically, villianizing games allows them to take no responability for things like teenage pregnancy, raise in crime, Billy can't read, and Bobby won't listen to me. You want to fight teenage pregnancy? Where are you wen they are screwing? You want to know why Billy can't read? When did you read with him?
The networks know they can make people stampede just by pointing their finger. It's like a small group of people reveling that they have the very power of Oprah in the palm of their hand.
I think to suggest that this will HURT Fox News's ratings rather misses the point that this kind of yellow journalism is exactly the reason Fox has HIGHER ratings than its competitors.
And Dan Rather got the sack for it, didn't he?
I don't beleive in attempts to 'regulate' what indeed should be a free press, it's just that the 'Nightly News' is no longer the trusted 'NEWS' source it once was. The time of Chroncite era trust in the major news networks is over, and the free market is solving the problem. I'm not saying our outrage is misplaced or somehow wrong, but that our outrage, and our viewing habits as media consumers will rectify the problem, if fox doesn't. People watch what they want to, and beleive what they want to. Some people can't get enough of the 'bat boy' tabloids, and who are we to say they can't have that?
My main beef is with the political aspect of all of this, if the ignorant audience of a media outlet is going to vote to restrict my freedom, or worse, some elected official is going to take advantage of this bandwagoning of my preferred media to further his own gains ... I will possibly loose freedoms under the law due to this ignorance.
It is my own responsibility as a citizen, consumer and gamer to take an active political stance on these issues. Isn't that at least in part what this site is all about? *ponders an ECA membership*
Now to Jim with Sports. "Oakland KILLED San Diego, Kobe Bryant was on FIRE, The Giants HAD THEIR WAY WITH New England.
I had to stop watching the news for the same reason, it basically turned into a show to watch to see who died during the day.
Now, with your idea of the average Fox News fan in mind, how many of those viewers do you think Fox News really in danger of losing because they'd rather be playing games instead of watching the news? Compare that number to how many of those viewers Fox News can retain by reaffirming their paranoia and prejudices against video games.
I don't buy the idea that Fox is trying to attack games because it doesn't want television to lose national mindshare to another form of entertainment. I don't buy the idea that Fox is highlighting questionable content in other forms of media to distract people from the questionable content it runs itself, either.
I'm pretty sure Fox News runs stories about the evils of video games simply because a significant portion of its viewership still believes that video games really are evil.
That is kinda a worry that I have, if I'm too busy playing video games, I might not notice that something huge IS going on
Not that that means it'd be ok to interrupt my gaming, but still
But Fox is a much larger behemoth than just Fox News. Think of it this way, is more time playing video games less time spent watching The Simpsons? Family Guy? Any of those other Fox shows that target the same demographic? I think it's a reasonable assertion. So Fox uses it's propaganda department (fox news) to protect it's entertainment division.
If this is what we call the news.... we as a nation a royaly $#%^@$^&@#!!!!.
Fox's ratings will go up with sensationalism, that's a fact. However, it's merely an attempt to delay the inevitable that we as the gaming community already know...
...TV is BORING! Interacting with the screen is exponentially more fun than just watching the pictures come out the way someone ELSE wants them to. It's obvious that video on the Internet is the future or at least interactive video rather than the, "Blah, blah, blah, here's what we think and if you don't think the same you're stupid!"
The television media has held media control for decades and now places on the net that encourage individuality are getting a LOT of attention.
This is the exact same phenomenon we're seeing in music and movies. Evolve or die. The RIAA is in the middle of it right now and it has so far decided to die rather than evolve. TV is going to have to do the same and start allowing us to PICK the content we wish to see when we want to see it (DVR or the like) or die as the dinosaur it is.
It's a huge change for a group that's used to talking to the darkness. The whole thing with Cooper Lawrence is a perfect example. Outrage manafested itself in the form of the gaming community. The audience voiced their opinion back on what was said. That's gotta give ANY network journalist nightmares. The weatherman... Well they're usuall wrong, so nothing will change there ;)
I agree with you 100%. I've been pretty much saying this whole time that one of the main reasons new media being attacked by old media is out marketshare concerns.
Stay Classy,
Clever
At last count about 1.6 million people probably know that. Fox needs to get its act together and stop trying to pass sensationalism off as news.