Anarchy Online Gamer Responds

An anonymous reader writes "Thought some people might be interested in seeing a follow up on the NYT article about the Anarchy Online player. His reaction to it was less then supportive. You can read about what he had to say and what other players had to say." See the original story for background.

Comments

misquoting is common and not necessarily malicious

[Baric]

I was sent a C&D letter from MLB Properties last summer concerning my website and was subsequently interviewed by several different newspapers within a week or so. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them misquoted me. The most common error was paraphrasing something I said, but maybe not exactly the same, and then placing quote marks around it as if I had uttered those exact words. One New York paper even inserted grammatical errors into sentences I never spoke! The key thing is that I believe all of these reporters were composing stories from memory rather than tape. About a month after the initial wave of publicity, a reporter in the Philly area (Harrisburg?) named David Jones contacted me for an interview. The first thing I did was relate my previous misquotes and asked if he was using a tape recorder. He was, and he produced a very accurate and fair story. Sometimes what looks like malicious reporting could be nothing more than sloppiness.

Fast-food Reporting

[jamesmartinluther]

The "better than thou" attitude of Seth Schiesel (the NYT reporter) here is remarkable:

Thedeacon is a celebrity. Mr. Stenlund, meanwhile, feels trapped - trapped in a town too far from big cities where big things happen, trapped in a hand-to-mouth existence, trapped in a mean little culture of cheap thrills and fast-food television.

What could drive a reporter to shun their supposed "objectivity" and engage in such social denigration? Was it just making the NYT reader feel good about themselves? "Big" Schiesel appears to have been irked by Thedeacon's interpersonal power in AO, perhaps because a powerful in-game community standing is something which those in the physical world may never attain.

This lack of respect toward emerging cultures and communities is a sign of the irrelevance of the media establishment. A reporter would not be able to get very far with this kind of twisted prejudice toward any given creed, race, or religion. Schiesel's blunt attack on a person who merely loves a new form of expression cannot hide behind the thin moniker of journalism, a profession which the NYT has nearly defined (and certainly destroyed).

- JML