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The Soapbox: What it means to be a game journalist
The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Additionally, this article is written in contrast to Jef Reahard's Soapbox on how video game journalists are not real journalists; Massively's writers' opinions on the subject vary. People have, on a few occasions, asked me for advice on becoming a game journalist. My usual response, which is only half-joking, is, "Don't." In just a handful of months, I'll be hitting my three-year anniversary for working Massively. That means I've had one of the longest tenures at the site, which is kind of staggering in my mind. I still fundamentally think of myself as one of the new kids on the block. But for better or worse, I've been doing this for a while and have a pretty good grasp of what the job entails. Of course, that's still a subject of debate. As with a lot of topics, people as a whole can't even decide on what makes someone a game journalist instead of just an enthusiast with some advertising revenue. To some people, it's not even a real job, just a hobby. I'm one of those people who never like to pin down an exact definition of something that's ambiguous... but I can define what I see as my responsibilities in this job.
