@chromejob - On The Media isn't investigative journalism, no. But a proper interview addressing a controversy still has to be critical if it's going to be worth anything at all. Bob Garfield's questions only served as a basis for Mr. Grant to tell his own narrative. Even if Mr. Grant did make a few legitimate points, which I'd say he did (specifically about feminist critiques in gaming - I don't really see a problem with them if games are going to be seen as art) that's not the point. The interview was self-serving and worthless.

I kind of did a double take when they let Mr. Grant say that there is no corruption in games journalism at all. Even if you're just interviewing the guy you should at least ask him to expand on that. That's the whole point of GG and allowing him to just dismiss that offhand is ridiculous.

For a show that objectively reviews the media this was terrible and biased. I've been a listener for years and never been so disappointed OTM. You should interview InternetAristocrat and watch his videos about biased journalism in videogaming and gamergate.

Mr. Grant makes two important points about this debacle that the pro-gamergate crowd seems to miss. One is that the kinds of feminist critiques of gaming that Anita Sarkeesian is doing have been done in film and television for decades, and movie studios haven’t stopped making movies with sexy ladies and explosions. Before her series on gaming, Ms. Sarkeesian talked about how females were portrayed in movies and TV, and never got death threats for her efforts. This is how people talk about things that are taken seriously. it’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean that the next GTA game will be set in Berkeley and you’ll play a trans social worker whose missions include saving puppies from trees and fighting the patriarchy.

The second point Mr. Grant made is that gamer gate has set back the discussion on games by decades, and reinforces a lot of negative stereotypes about both male and female gamers. If we don’t want to be stereotyped as misogynistic basement-dwelling trolls, we need to stop acting like it.

From the letter I emailed to OTM:

I've been listening to your program every week for years. I've always admired the in-depth objective nature of the show and have long considered it one of the best sources of media analysis and criticism and truth in information out there.

That is why it pains me to write to you about your program last week, and harshly object to what I consider to be a failure to research and deliver a piece that was representative of the full picture regarding #GamerGate.

I won't bog you with long winded, point by point breakdown of where you went wrong, but suffice it to say, I have a different opinion than your guest, and it would have, at the very least, been prudent to bring on a person representative of the other side of the debate.

As it stands, the piece was presented as a hit job, painting gamers as basement dwellers, irrelevant, opposed to progressive ideas, and misogynists, which couldn't be further from the truth.

I don't know if you will revisit this story again, but know that my trust in your program has been deeply shaken. I feel embarrassed that you all were duped into buying into a single side of a complicated issue without questioning its veracity.

If nothing else, for your own sakes, please seek out more information from the other side. I'm a progressive, I'm not a misogynist, I don't harass women, or feel threatened by fading influence, and I think my bullshit detector is pretty well functional.

What I am concerned about as a supporter of #GamerGate is corruption and influence in game media through nepotism, paid marketing in the guise of objective news, and intrusion of political agendas into gaming that, like your guest on last week's show said of certain figures he disagreed with, "don't have anything to do with gaming".

Your show is about covering how the media operates. Try looking deeper into the claims presented by #GamerGate, and finding out what those that represent it actually have to say before giving Polygon a clock tower from which to snipe.

Please do better next time. That felt like 60 Minutes' piece on the NSA.

It's intriguing to see all the people saying that there's way more to the movement of people making rape threats and death threats. If there's more to it then the gamers need to go after the harassers as energetically and stridently as they do the media. Those are the people making gamergate look bad.

Gamergate coverage in the mainstream media has been pathetic. A lot of the stories don't even make any sense: apparently a bunch of people, for no reason, just got together to harass women. Right. It's because journalists are so lazy that they've failed to do any... y'know, journalism. To investigate, understand, and report fairly, and not just copy and paste articles from other outlets ad infinitum.

Polygon, as well as some other games "news" websites, were constructively criticized. That's the beating heart of gamergate. They could have stopped it all a long time ago by admitting they were having problems with corruption and addressing it by making a publicly known ethics code and sticking to it. That's all GG asked for. Instead of that simple solution, they decided to unleash the largest, most vicious and dehumanizing smear campaign the internet has ever seen, and this interview is just a continuation of that. 15 articles were released in 2 days proclaiming that "Gamers are Dead," accusing them of misogyny, homophobia, racism, et al. Really nasty stuff, and from there it only got worse. This isn't exactly new for them, Kotaku wrote an article accusing Dragon's Crown players of being pedophiles (which is delusional) and this was months *before* gamergate. Oh, and they co-ordinated all these attacks through a secret email list (gamejournopros).

So it's really that simple: gamergate asked for their media outlets to have some integrity, so the outlets unleashed a deluge of hateful slander in order to deflect legitimate criticism and discredit these people.

The guest said that since harassment happened, the movement is inextricably tied to it. What he failed to mention is that the anti-GG people are actually worse: they sent a dirty syringe to a journalist at Breitbart, a knife and menacing note to a youtuber, revealed people's personal details and made countless death threats. Gawker's own Sam Biddle publicly incited violence, asking his followers to "Bring back bullying" because "Nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission." Does that mean that the anti-GG people support harassment? By his logic, if he were intellectually honest (which he's not), the answer would be a resounding yes.

I'd love to see even one single article where the journalist did his job and gave impartial treatment to the subject, but that won't happen. Either they're too corrupt or too lazy to do so. It's easier to just say, "Oh, someone said these guys are Nazis, must be true lol durr."

Its disingenuous to keep repeating the canard only basement dwelling neckbeard virgins are spurring #Gamergate on becuase it distracts from the issues of cronyism in the gaming industry and media. Asking an editor from Polygon to explain the issues is like asking Nixon to explain Watergate.

Thi piece is hack job and you can be sure I won't be donating to WNYC EVER

Yes, why are communities full of aspies, bullied kids and socially inept virgin makes like they are?

BECAUSE THEY'RE FULL OF ASPIES, BULLIED KIDS AND SOCIALLY INEPT ANGRY VIRGIN MALES

Every heard of pent up sexual frustration?

How are people even the least bit surprised. There are two paradigms in high school, the one where the confident males hold the cards and women feel objectified and discriminated, and the one where women hold all the cards but seem to be oblivious to that fact while frightened Beta males grow anger and frustration they can achieve was they get bombarded with in movies and TV: sex.

Do the math.

The interview was with this fellow. On the Media is not investigative journalism, it's a show about ... the media, and how it reports news and events. So instead of crying that this interview wasn't what you would want it to be, discuss what it is.

Mr. Grant makes strong points worth listening to.

If it weren't for the fact that pimple-faced teenage gamer boys can get their hands on guns, or reveal to the world personal details of someone else's life, and do some real damage, this would not be such an issue... although I must admit, the objectification of women (and men too for that matter) is entirely objectionable as well. Grow up.

Just heard this interview. I like On The Media, and I agree that there are some legitimate adjustments going on within gaming right now re: the role of women, but this story was presented in an extremely skewed way. Christopher Grant is naturally going to say there's absolutely no corruption in games journalism because he's the editor-in-chief of Polygon - he has a financial interest in telling that story. The fact that Bob Garfield completely bought into his account of events is quite frankly amazing.

Why this Christopher Grant has big ego?....

Maybe "JasonQ" is right in that all those #GamerGate participants are right-wing Benghazi conspiracy nuts who only pretend to care about corruption in their media, but who *really* just want to subjugate and harass women. It's plausible, right? All those hateful, bigoted gamers and their hatefulness and bigotedness. Alternatively, maybe there's something to be said about the messaging that results from picking fights with the people who buy their (virtual) ink by the barrel...

"Gaming enthusiast from Northeast USA" reminds me of those people who start out by declaring that they have no agenda and an open mind about (for example) Benghazi, then proceed to parrot the specific talking points of the Fox-News-and-talk-radio conspiracy nuts verbatim, thinking that they will sound more reasonable if we don't know where his loyalties really lie. He's a gaming enthusiast first, and a person who cares about harassment of women second ... because the former is the part he wants to talk about.

Gamergate is about ethics in gaming journalism in the same way that the Tea party is about government spending: just a little bit.

One wonders why OTM would bother reporting on such a pathetic "troll crusade" borne of imagined and trumped-up scandals. If #GamerGate is about the harassment of women, game developers, and Everything Else That Is Just In The World, then even waste the time condemning such a pointless and evil endeavour? Aren't there more important things to discuss than a bunch of angry, virgin, neckbearded, mysogynist gamers?

Or perhaps we're only getting one side of the story here. I've only been peripherally aware of #GamerGate, but even I know that their primary dispute is with the insularity, cliqueish-ness, and both big-industry and small-indie corruption of the gaming press--and here we have a member of said gaming press presenting a very pretty story to our irregularly credulous Bob.

Again, I'm on the periphery of knowledge about #GamerGate, and even I know about revelations like "GameJournoPros," the gaming press mailing list modeled after Ezra Klein's much-maligned and scandaled JournoList--yet in this segment we hear nothing of it, nor of the now-leaked attempts of the list's participants attempts to steer coverage and push agendas in their respective publications. It may be mere coincidence that Mr. Christoper Grant of Polygon was revealed as one of the GJP members.

OTM, you had a good opportunity here to dig a little deeper into some media shenanigans. I'm sad to say that you missed it.

This is so biased, lol.

Your arguments are bad, and you should feel bad <-- Zoidberg reference for those who don't use the internet frequently