Not too long ago, the mainstream media reported on #GamerGate. MSNBC, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and The New York Times all said the exact same thing: #GamerGate is about misogyny and the harassment of women online. None of them talked about what #GamerGate is really about: the corruption of gaming journalism and how there is no separation between the journalists and the developers (and critics) they are reporting on. But the mainstream media will not report on it, and likely will never report on it for the same reason that the gaming press censored any discussion of the corruption in gaming media.
Yes, mainstream journalism is just as infected with feminist and social justice ideology as the gaming press is—even conservative media to a large extent. In this climate, only the politically correct narrative as dictated by social justice ideologues gets through. This is why when you search for the men’s rights movement on Google, you’ll only find one-sided hit pieces that portray the MRM as a misguided hate group. However, in this case, like the gaming press, they’re using social justice as a shield. The mainstream press does not want you asking questions such as “If the gaming press is this corrupt, what about the mainstream press?” What the mainstream media does not want you to know is that they are absolutely no different from the gaming press.
Fox News is seen as a tool for the Republican Party. MSNBC is largely seen as a tool for the Democrats. General political journalism is little better. DC political journalists are in bed, often quite literally, with the politicians and newsmakers they report on. They all know one another and frequent the same social scenes at the very least—no different from gaming journalists (Mark Leibovich’s This Town is a great source on this). In fact, the only source for political news I actually trust is C-SPAN because they just give it to you completely raw and unedited, but even there you occasionally have to take things with grains of salt.
But it goes beyond political journalism. Take business journalism as an example. The stock analysts who show up on business channels like CNBC are often paid shills for the stocks they recommend. We’re led to believe these analysts are impartial when they are not. I do not listen to stock picks from the media, especially from big names like Jim Cramer, for this reason.
Furthermore, the news is often just press releases from businesses and special interest groups presented as news. For example, in her book The New Thought Police, Tammy Bruce describes how, as the L.A. National Organization for Women chapter president, she sent out press releases that were published verbatim, among other actions such as meeting with editorial boards and reporters to make sure the coverage fit her agenda. While the book came out over 10 years ago, these practices are obviously still going on now.
So the next time you hear from a mainstream source that #GamerGate is about misogyny, ask yourself what they are trying to hide and why. I am sure it would not be very hard to find secret email lists and collusion between journalists and their subjects. #NotYourShield has the right idea, but it needs to go beyond gaming journalism because it’s not just that crowd who is doing it—it’s all press now. That’s the lesson of the latest round of #GamerGate articles. Social justice philosophy has infected just about all of journalism, and it’s been that way forever. The press knows what they’re purposely hiding from the public, and they need to be called on it. It’s time we stand up and demand the press stop using women and minorities to shield their corrupt practice.
