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When Game News Takes A Bad Turn....


On 08/09/2014 at 10:19 PM by Nicoleb1989

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I dont know who all on here use facebook, I do*for the current time* and I liked a page called Zeldainformer. They typically do a good job about bringing news to forefront about anything zelda and normally they are pretty trustworthy but something occured today that might have changed that credibility stance for a lot of people. Today they posted a article apparently claiming false information but at the same time they werent trying to really hide it was false. If that makes an sense, honestly Im a tad confused which going on 5 hours of sleep could be to blame. Overall they seemed to have pissed off a good  chunk of their fanbase. Now I cant say whether anyone has a right to be mad or not. Im technically not upset at all by it but it brought the most interesting question up in my head, should we truely support this sort of thing in game journalism?

Game journalism honestly is one of the high ranking types thats gets a ton of false and misleading information on a daily basis. A ton of news stories hit the web especially on a day to day basis that can be true or false and while most game journalism sites handle things with extreme care some are downright callous to it and dont care. Zeldainformer I personally wouldnt consider callous, they normally always try to keep everything they post legit. They purposefully posted a false news story because they apparently feel that this will help combat people believeing everything lil thing they read. Their hopeing this will encourage people to look up facts and sources and check everything they read. As much as I wish thats how things worked, it doesnt. People use the internet as one of the biggest sources of info next to the newspaper/books. Sadly that also means that a lot of people dont take the extra time to check sources and facts. They read and believe in one single bound. While I totally understand where ZI is coming from, I dont think this is a good way to go about it. I personally feel it will do nothing but increase their loss of incredibility and piss people off even more. Personally there isnt a remedy for this sort of thing. People are gonna believe what their gonna believe and typically we humans are hard headed and stubborn so that doesnt help matters. I guess if ZI does continue with this sort of thing then I guess the next few months will prove interesting for them.

https://www.facebook.com/ZeldaInformer?fref=nf

I have included the link to their site on facebook if anyone cares to read it for themselves. Maybe you will catch something I missed over the whole thing but thats my take on it. I personally wanna know yalls feeling about this so please do share!


 

Comments

Travis Hawks Senior Editor

08/09/2014 at 11:20 PM

Well, expecting people to personally fact check everything they read online is ridiculous. Having trustworthy sources that do that for you is what real news sites do. I'm not just talking about games, but politics, celebs, whatever. The good thing about games is that if you fall for a fake rumor, who cares? You just thought the next Link was going to be female or Lord of the Rings Kart Racing was real and when those turn out to be fake... nothing bad happens. You didn't vote for the wrong thing or protest a non-existent legislative vote.

There are a ton of gaming sites online, many of them bringing you news. We used to do it here more too, and even the small amount we did wasn't easy. It's hard work to fact check, get confirmations, get details, and still get something posted while it's hot. When I'm reading gaming news, I just try to pick sources I generally trust and then always have my BS meter at the ready just in case. If something seems off, I just won't get worked up about it until its confirmed. 

Nicoleb1989

08/09/2014 at 11:56 PM

I guess for me its not to hard to consider fact checking, I typically try to do it with everything I read and I try to look up any info that can back it. Its just a me thing so I can see both sides of the arguement but I know deep down alot of people dont have that type of curiousty as me. Not to mention I will if I feel people here would wanna know post it on to here so I try to not make myself look like a fool,lol.

asrealasitgets

08/09/2014 at 11:45 PM

Well I couldn't find the original post that angered the readers in the first place, but it seems ZI was scolding their readers for submitting links to a story with a misleading headline. I'm assuming that ZI gets part of it's news sources from reader submissions, and they all failed to read the full article before submitting it. ZI verified the original article was bogus, and posted anyway to teach readers a lesson? LOL! That is no way to treat your followers. They would have gained more respect if they pointed out the problem in the first place and called out Destructoid for their unverified source. 

Bad on you ZI!Yell 

And here is the article in question from Destructoid in case you were wondering:
http://www.destructoid.com/no-plans-for-amiibo-support-for-hyrule-warriors-279345.phtml 

Nicoleb1989

08/10/2014 at 12:02 AM

The post apparently was Zelda Misinformer and it seemed to piss alot of people off. Apparently it was talking about Ganon being announced for smash I believe and it was completely false. Idk, I had just woke up to all this going on, I wraped my head around it has much as possiable and said fuck it I dont have enough breadcrumbs to even get home now!

C.S.3590SquadLeader

08/11/2014 at 03:52 PM

I can sort of see the reasoning behind doing something like this, though at the same time they should've figured there'd be some sort of backlash because of it.

Nicoleb1989

08/12/2014 at 11:03 AM

They honestly I think believed that their fan base wouldnt be to harsh on it but it proved very very wrong in the end for them.

BrokenH

08/11/2014 at 04:13 PM

I agree,delibertely misleading people is not the best thing to do. But had they simply made one mistake on reporting something I would not have personally gotten too angry. Afterall,most big game sites error or pump out slanted propaganda regularly on a daily basis. lol.

Nicoleb1989

08/12/2014 at 11:39 AM

Excatly, it being an accident is one thing but purposely misleading is just a crappy thing to do. Hopefully this teaches them a big lesson.

goaztecs

08/18/2014 at 11:06 AM

Its a shame that news outlets do this. I guess they could hide behind the fact that they always need to post some new content but it doesn't take that much effort into fact checking your sources and info on your work.

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