GamerGate can't seem to focus.

Editor's note: The opinions in this article are the author's, and do not represent the opinions of GamePolitics.

My name is James Fudge and I was a member of the now defunct GameJournoPros, an email list for professional writers and wonderful human beings covering the video game industry and culture. I do not regret being on that list and I make no apologies for anything I have said in my private conversations to my peers that were made public by former members that lack integrity, decency, loyalty, or honor (they know who they are).

Welcome to two weeks ago!

The American University School of Communication is using a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation for a new program to train journalists in game design, Gamasutra reports.The grant money will be used to fund a "Journalism Leadership Transformation" pilot program with six fellowship positions: three for working journalists, and three for journalism students.

Some Youtubers who wanted to review the PC version of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor had to jump through several questionable hoops put in place by Warner Bros. Interactive's social media PR firm Plaid Social in order to get access, according to a new video by high profile gaming personality and writer Jim Sterling. The story first came to light through a series of tweets from YouTube star TotalBiscuit.

GamesBeat Editor-in-Chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu announced this morning that he is leaving the publication for a new and undisclosed opportunity outside writing about games.

"After almost two decades as a game-industry journalist/critic/writer/editor, I decided it was time to move on and try something new," Hsu wrote on GamesBeat. "Friday, Oct. 3 will be my last day as GamesBeat’s editor-in-chief, and I am leaving video game media altogether."

See that guy on the left?  That's the #GamerGator.  Because I think it's cute.

Anyway, this week we're running a poll asking What is #GamerGate about?

EZK and I will reveal the poll results on this weekend's Super Podcast Action Committee (which streams live right here on GamePolitics at 6p PST!) but in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to collect your thoughts on one of the poll's response options.

#GamerGate.

It's a hashtag you may have seen on Twitter or discussed in countless news and opinion pieces at various websites, both enthusiast and mainstream.  It's a movement, a collection of like-minded and passionate people banding together in order to achieve an end.

What end is that, you ask?

You tell us!  Vote in this week's poll and tell us what #GamerGate is all about.  If the true meaning is not among the response options, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Bungie community manager David "Deej" Dague says that, because Destiny isn't your typical shooter, the community shouldn't expect to see many launch day reviews for the game - and if they do they might not be able to properly represent the scope of the game. Destiny servers went live this morning and much of the press playing the game to evaluate it have only had enough time to play the game for a few hours.

Kill Screen has a fascinating interview with indie developer Nicky Case, who is working on a video game about media bias. His inspiration? The network coverage of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

On August 9, African American teen Michael Brown was shot multiple times by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson. The death of the teen, who was unarmed at the time he was shot at least five times, sparked riots and protests in Ferguson, and tons of national attention from media outlets.

Update: A CBS Interactive representative tells us that more than two people remain on GameSpot's U.S. editorial team, and that Eddie Makuch, a member of GameSpot's news team, is still with the company - he works out of the company's East Coast office. Crave Online reports that Jess McDonell, Danny O’Dwyer, Justin Haywald, Chris Watters, and Kevin VanOrd still work for GameSpot as of this writing.

Continuing its series of reports on popular YouTube personalities taking money to promote games, Gamasutra offers details of a recent survey that shows how developers feel about the whole issue. In its survey of developers Gamasutra asked a handful of questions about paying for coverage, if they would consider paying for coverage in the future, and if any traditional media outlets had ever asked them for money.

Good Games Writing has launched #PitchJam & #CritJam, a week-long celebration of games writing. The site claims that more than 150 writers have signed on to take part in the event, and more are expected to join in. To take part you have to RSVP.

A new survey released by Gamasutra reveals a disturbing fact about YouTube gaming personalities; of those who participated in a survey, around 26 percent admitted that they had taken money directly or indirectly to promote a game or brand from a publisher.

We've seen "rock simulators" and goat simulators, so I suppose it isn't that much of a stretch for a games journalist to want to make a "games journalist simulator." That's exactly what games journalist Jason Evangelho tells web site Siliconera; he has teamed up with Game Informer writer Daniel Tack to create "Game Journalism Simulator."

Computer & Video Games will not be shut down by Future Publishing, but will suffer a round of layoffs, according to this MCV report. Earlier this year Future had revealed plans to shut down the publication and focus on GamesRadar. Instead, the company will cut two of the five full time staff members working for CVG, with a review of the site occurring again in December of this year.

An interesting article from Gamasutra explores whether traditional games journalism is slowly being damaged by the advent of the YouTube video game personality. The article, "Is YouTube killing the traditional games press?" goes directly to game developers to ask them if having their videogames played or highlighted by a popular YouTube personality has had an actual impact on sales.

UK-based magazine and website publisher Future Publishing will lay off 170 employees as part of a new restructuring plan, the company announced today. Over 170 employees in the UK will be laid off as the company slims down costs and streamlines its operations. The company made the announcement as it published its half-year financial results for the six month period that ended on March 31.

Kill Screen has announced some additional speakers for its upcoming one-day conference, Two5Six. The conference, taking place on May 16th at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, New York, has been described as the "TED Talks of Video Gaming." Kill Screen certainly likes that comparison, though they think it's is more like a "one-day celebration of play as culture," that engages "game designers in conversation with other digital creatives."

As of this writing there are around 80 minutes left until the crowd-funding campaign for Unwinnable Weekly ends. The campaign to fund a digital weekly edition of Unwinnable hit its initial goal of $35,000 yesterday and hit another milestone of $38,545 in the last couple of hours.

Update: The Unwinnable team is hosting a live Telethon right now on Twitch, which you can take part in by visiting www.twitch.tv/teamunwinnable.

This NeoGAF thread and a subsequent post on OXM reveals that journalists attending a Watch Dogs event in Paris were given a Nexus 7 Tablet t

With less than six days to go before its Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign ends, the Unwinnable Weekly digital magazine project has raised $15,275 of its $35,000 goal. Unwinnable Weekly is a weekly digital magazine featuring writing from gaming site Unwinnable's list of excellent contributors.

Gaming site Unwinnable launched a Kickstarter campaign a few weeks ago to fund a weekly digital magazine featuring writing from its list of excellent contributors. As of this writing that campaign has raised almost half of the $35,000 needed to fund the project, with less than two weeks to go. As of this writing Unwinnable Weekly has raised right around $12,196.

A new study conducted by Greg Perreault, a doctoral student at the MU School of Journalism, concludes that, as technology has advanced, the criticism of violence in video games by the media has decreased.

The U.S. arm of magazine publisher Future has laid off a third of its employees, according to this GII report. The UK-based publisher will not shut down any of its U.S. brands but key responsibilities will now be carried out by UK teams, including "editorial leadership and all print support duties."

Yesterday, Mark Wood announced he would step down as Future's CEO on April 1, with current CFO Zillah Byng-Maddick lined up as his replacement.

Online retailer Newegg.com has officially launched an editorial site this morning called GameCrate. The website will offers consumers visiting Newegg.com a place to read the latest news, reviews, and features related to video game hardware and software, original video content and the latest game-related trailers, live eSports event coverage, and professional advice on the latest hardware and technology.

Gaming site Unwinnable has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a weekly digital magazine featuring excellent and insightful writing from its list of excellent contributors. You can get a sample here (PDF), but Unwinnable promises that future issues of the weekly digital magazine will feature the best games and culture criticism from the all-star voices that have made Unwinnable great over the last four years.

Naughty Dog co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra have come out swinging against the media for reporting that Uncharted writer and lead Amy Hennig was forced out of the company by the creative leads on The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. In a post on the official company site, the duo blasted the media for reporting the unconfirmed nature of Hennig's departure from the company. That report came from IGN who was told by inside sources that she was leaving the company and was forced out by Druckmann and Straley.

The head of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has lashed out at one of the key journalists publishing stories about the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. While not mentioning him by name, Rogers basically calls The Guardian's Glen Greenwald a thief, implying that he is committing some sort of crime and is selling the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. You may recall that Greenwald was one of the first journalists to break the story about Edward Snowden and his cache of NSA-related documents and materials..