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Lazy
reporting condemns racy game
Our
view
Reporting — sometimes
journalists get it wrong. They leave
out facts, provide slanted coverage,
either purposefully or subconsciously,
or simply publish at the end of the day
with a false understanding of the story.
Those who receive the back end of the bad deal, like celebrities, businesses
or politicians, are often hurt by such errors.
It’s a dirty facet of the trade, but an inevitable one because journalists
are humans too. Humans make mistakes.
Case in point: the recent coverage of sexual content in the computer game Grand
Theft Auto: San Andreas. The story given by most media outlets is that a Dutch
programmer discovered a way to unlock some pornographic content in the popular
desktop version of San Andreas.
This prompted California Assembly speaker pro Tem Leland Yee to condemn the
game as a part of his agenda to curb violent video game sales. This launched
an investigation to possibly change the game’s rating from mature to
adult.
A change of rating to adult would be a major win for the vocal detractors of
the Grand Theft Auto series. It would further enhance their notion that violent
or explicit game content should not be accessible by children.
Here’s what the story lacked: the Dutch programmer did not necessarily
discover the sexually explicit content, but rather manipulated the game to
get the sexy stuff using a separate program called a mod.
Mods are completely independent modifications of the original games, and therefore
the publishers cannot be responsible for what mods do.
The key words here are independent modifications.
The Dutchman who made the mod claims the explicit content was hidden and he
simply found it. But this is like claiming the sentence, “My son exited
the lobby.” contains a hidden sexual innuendo because if you delete all
the letters except “s,” “e,” “x” and “y” you
have the word, “sexy.”
Too many stories barely mentioned mods in passing, much less explained in detail
how they work. This should have been the focus.
Instead, the stories were more concerned with covering the outcry of angry
activists with debatable beliefs that video games promote violence.
Consequently, the true nature of this story gives those activists little ground
to stand on.
Understandably, they say such mature games should not be given to young children.
This is why games are already rated mature and not sold to the young, making
their concerns already answered.
Second, to view the adult content requires downloading the modification. Their
outcries against the game publisher inserting pornographic content are therefore
invalid since the game did not originally contain it.
But of course, in order to pursue a political agenda these facts are clouded
and no determined ideologue likes to cloud the issue with unsavory facts.
Perhaps the reason why many stories failed to get the real deal on the nature
of mods and their effect upon Grand Theft Auto is due to the generation technology
gap. Maybe the stereotypical gray-haired men with the press labels in their
hats simply didn’t understand some of the trendy new computer terms.
However, they should have found out. Surely someone, probably a young gamer
in the newsroom, could have explained. Plaudits do go to the New York Times,
one of the most prestigious, for getting the story straight. |
