News: Lies, suicide, and metal gear solid

January 19, 2006, 06:04 PM

by tim, via integrity -
[permalink]

I'm going to get political with you for a moment: a website run by some people I respect -- MetalGearSolid.org (which coincidentally used photographs of Hideo Kojima that I'd taken myself in its layout) -- has been shut down by "a government agency" following an AFP newswire story (reported on Yahoo! News and CNN, among other places) about how a member of their forums broadcasted his suicide via webcam as other forum members egged him on. Apparently it was big news for a few moments over there in America.

Well, the worst thing is, it's not true. For one thing, the forum member, who did in fact commit suicide, did not broadcast his death. Moreover, the forum members tried with all their might to talk him down.

Some of you may know me as a vicious liar and all that. And I'll admit that I do lie about a lot of things, though usually only in things as inconsequential as videogame reviews. I'm not Yahoo! news or CNN or anything; I'm just a guy with a hobby. This kind of misreporting is fun (for me, at least) as a hobby. As something done by professionals in the field of journalism, it's terrible. It's probably the worst thing that has happened in the media, regarding how people who play videogames are portrayed. It's worse than the EverQuest guy killing himself; it's worse than guys in Korea dying on gaming binges; it's worse than a lot of other things. This kind of journalism is even worse than Jack Thompson. That stupid son of a bitch.

What you can do, after you've appropriately read up on this, is contact the AFP wire organization telling them, plainly, that you think this is horrible, that they should fire the reporter responsible for these bizarrely malicious lies, and then apologize as widely as possible. Chances are, the APF have fired the guy already, and are as upset about this happening as we all are. However, the general public aren't going to forget what they heard first, and even if a retraction is issued, the damage is irreversible. So. It helps to spread the word around. So go for it.