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VGMWatch tackles the "what's a blogger" question
We often get caught in the debate over bloggers versus journalists. For starters, I think we have to be clear that the definition of journalist is a rather broad one so, depending on which definition you subscribe to, bloggers either are or aren't journalists. When we post a (rather awesome) picture of a Zelda tattoo, there are no cries that such a thing isn't newsworthy (often the contrary), while a 4 hour-old press release is met with cries of "OLD" echoing acoss the comment forms. Clearly the metric for calibrating such a distinction is loose at best. So it is in this mess that Kyle Orland, of Video Game Media Watch, finds himself while answering a reader's question: "I understand that bloggers don't really see themselves as journalists per se, but what, exactly, is their role?"Orland frames his response with two examples: one from this very blog and a series of posts (1, 2) concerning the backwards compatibility of our much-beloved Psychonauts; the other concerns the slap-fight between gaming-blog Kotaku and gaming-megasite IGN. In all, Orland presents some interesting commentary on where blogs fit into the larger gaming media and offers this rather potent distillation of our role:If journalism is the first draft of history, blogs are the first draft of journalism. You can look into the sausage factory and see all the swirling rumors, competing theories, and developing bits of conventional wisdom that go into making a delicious story, in close to real time. This is one main reason why they've beome so popular so quickly - people love taking a peek behind the curtain to see the emperor, um, making sausage.Orland's example illustrates both the advantages (delicious sausage) and shortcomings (what's in it?) of the format. As the most popular gaming blog on the internet, we work hard to maintain our credibility through discriminating story selection, proper sourcing, timely and transparent updates, and accountability via our open comment system. And, while we strive to keep errors to a minimum, if something is erroneous or misleading, we can count on you guys to let us know. And if it's old, we're sure you'll let us know that too.
NPR starts a gaming podcast
National Public Radio in the U.S. has started a fortnightly podcast on the topic of video game culture called Press Start. Kyle Orland, the guy that runs VGMWatch, is one of the hosts of the show along with Ralph Cooper, an ex-NPR staffer and current stand-up comedian, and Robert Holt, NPR's server guy who also reviews games for All Things Considered. Their first show, which runs for a short but sweet 15 minutes, covers that time old topic "video games as art". Some choice quotes:Kyle - "You really need to know what art is before you can determine whether video games are art".Ralph - "I feel like a lot of video games, at least right now, they're not really trying to make statements".Rob - "When I was in Grand Theft Auto... I was driving through the city and listening to the radio and I drove over a hill and I saw... this huge moon rise over the horizon, I was just in it at that point. I just knew that this was not your normal game. Of course, I could have just been beating up hookers..."If you're up for some interesting and to-the-point video game culture commentary but want to skip on the usual "I like to hear the sound of my own voice" crap from the host(s), then make sure to add Press Start to your player of choice (iTunes link, My Yahoo! link, generic podcast RSS feed).
