Video Games and Journalism This Past Summer Essay

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Video Games and Journalism

This past summer Rupert Murdoch, founder and CEO of News Corp., the world's second-largest media conglomerate, found himself in the midst of a controversy stemming from a phone-hacking scandal perpetrated by several reporters from his now-defunct New of the World tabloid.

On July 19, 2011, before a group of British lawmakers, looking dejected and frail, the media icon confessed that his organization "had broken our trust with our readers" (Chu 2011)

Whether or not Murdoch was genuinely sorry for the nefarious activity his reporters engaged in or just sorry they got caught can be debated, but what can't be debated is his successful way of dealing with exposed corruption within the ranks.

How did Murdoch handle the situation? The answer to this question can best be described in two words: isolation and ignore. Isolate the contagion and ignore the blowback.

In a sense what Murdoch did was immediately isolate those who were "responsible" for the phone hacking (even those loosely responsible or vicariously responsible) and fire them. Then, by and large, ignore the issue and press on as if nothing has happened.

Remember, Murdoch didn't willfully testify. If he had a choice, he would have probably kept silent about the whole thing. Moreover, one of his subsidiaries -- the "fair and balanced" Fox News -- continued about their business as if nothing had happened. That is to say that Fox News did little to cover the story, they ignored it. And when Fox News did cover the story, they steered away from addressing the real issues, such as Murdoch's culpability and the potential for systemic corruption within his empire.

If I were the chief editor of a large metropolitan daily newspaper I would follow suit, that is, I would follow Murdoch's blueprint of isolate and ignore. I would fire the reporter and perhaps his/her supervisor. Then I would ignore the fallout and continue operations as if everything was normal. Only if things got out of hand with respect to media pressure or public scrutiny would I admit any wrongdoing or make an apology.

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The truth is that, as Morrison said, "Whoever controls the media, controls the mind." People are impressionable. They look to the media for not how to think (i.e. The process of critical thinking), but what to think. One can feed them a new dish every night (As W.H. Auden said, "What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish). This is something that both Murdoch and Roger Ailes are keenly aware of.

People get caught up over journalistic integrity and ethics. Those, if they ever existed, died in the era of Cronkite. In today's fractured and decentralized media landscape, stories and articles are fluid. They can be redacted at any point in time. Nothing published online is permanent. This leaves the door open for a whole new way of delivering the news that really just reinforces what one already knows. The onus has always been on, and always will be on, the reader - not the writer, journalist or editor - to vet the information and to consider the source. Caveat emptor!

One can certainly argue that if it were any different, if there were ethics in journalism, Fox News would not exit.

What's sad is this assignment asked for a "realistic" solution, and although it's tough to admit it, this is as real as it gets. It's a solution that accords with the golden rule. Who has the gold makes the rules. Nothing will change this. Murdoch and Ailes are laughing straight to the bank.

Part 2

CNN published a list of the "10 Best Video Games of 2010." On that list were titles such as "Call of Duty: Black Ops," "God of War 3," "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty," Halo: Reach," "Heavy Rain," "Red Dead Redemption,"….....

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