Why are Uighur issues getting ignored by gaming journalism?

[Rosenkrantz]

In light of the ongoing coverage of the situation with Uighurs in China, I wonder why the gaming media is so silent about the issue? We know from the news that a lot of the tech companies, including those that are prominent in video game industry, were involved (knowingly or unknowingly is a different question) with manufacturers who used slave labour. Now with the news of the systemic rape of Uighur women inside the camps the picture becomes even more horrifying. It's a big story that is curiously swept under the rug in our industry.

Since this forum has a journalistic presence here, I'd like to ask, is there any reason why this story isn't getting covered? Is it an editorial stance? Or crunch is the only issue gaming journalists and their editors think is worth investigating in this industry?

I understand that this is might be unfair and nobody wants to burn bridges, but in my mind, this just shows that ad revenue and clicks during hype cycles mean more than the genuine coverage of the horrible situation.

Edit: in case someone wants to know more, here's the main thread here which periodically gets updated with a new info, thanks to all the folks who keep it alive.

[BBC] In China, Uighurs 'moved into factory forced labour' for foreign brands Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony

It was recommended that I cross post this from EtcetEra for awareness, particularly as we move towards a new generation of consoles. Letting people make informed decisions about where they're willing to put their money is the best thing anyone can do here. Here's the latest on the various...

www.resetera.com

 

[Puroresu_kid]

The gaming industry does not have journalists.

 

[Potterson]

95% of gaming outlets in the world do not do any kind of real reporting or journalism, so it's really not a surprise. Many outlets have a policy of being 100% about entertainment. News, reviews, videos.

 

[Budi]

Maybe it's too severe and too wide reaching. How do you hold these companies responsible for slave labor and then go back to making money for them by advertising their products the next day. Not many consumers seemingly like to talk about it either. We go hard on crunch with studios like CDPR and Naughty Dog. "Fuck CDPR, never giving my money to them again!" That's easy. Well try not to give money to platform holders and still be gaming. Get's bit trickier to do the right thing, because it interferes with our own convenience and leisure.

 

[Clark Zuckerberg]

Obviously these issues are important, but they're gaming sites. I'm not going to rag on them for not reporting on non-gaming things. That's for the regular media to report on. Just my two cents.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

The gaming industry does not have journalists.

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Sadly, I think there's really not that many outlets that do an actual journalism. It's more of a question to those who consider themselves journalists.

 

[texhnolyze]

Because it's more than just gaming. When the journalists realize that everything in their posession is related to the Uighur exploitation, they must be backing off silently.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

Theu don't care because it doesn't give clicks.

It is fucked up.

 

[Lightning Count]

Obviously these issues are important, but they're gaming sites. I'm not going to rag on them for not reporting on non-gaming things. That's for the regular media to report on. Just my two cents.

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If you're trying to be sneaky with this, it doesn't work on light theme ERA.

 

[Madao]

it's not just gaming. it's everyone.

i have yet to see anything about this in my local news. i only know about the issue due to this forum.

 

[Nature's finest mango]

The gaming industry does not have journalists.

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First of all, this. A million times this.

Then, they'd have to admit the overall hypocrisy of only caring about causes that wouldn't put an end to their main hobby, at least temporarily, as all major constructors benefit from the "free" workforce in Uighur majority areas.


edit: to the poster above, Madao, well I wonder where you get your news from then. It's covered on a regular basis in international media outlets.

 

[B-Dubs]

Frankly, no one in the gaming sphere has the sources needed to report this story. If you want to report this story you need sources in China willing to talk about it. These are the kinds of sources that foreign correspondents at places like the BBC and NYTimes spend entire careers cultivating. And frankly, no editor is going to pay for a trip to China for a gaming journalist to cover this from that angle. Expecting dudes that normally report on stuff like crunch or release delays to have the sources needed to report this is just silly. This isn't the sort of story where you just dial a guy at Blizzard or Nintendo, this is REAL journalism and it's the sort of thing people risk their lives to report. Y'all are acting like this is easy, that it's a matter of a few phone calls. The BBC has talked about reporters literally being chased out of China by dudes in trucks for just trying to cover this.

BuzzFeed has a 4 part expose on this and there was a year's gap between parts 3 and 4. They literally had to track down a refugee camp in the middle east to find sources. There was over a year between the BBC first reporting it and the new stories they're putting out. This is happening in a country that ain't exactly friendly to journalists in the first place and they'll be even less friendly when they find out someone's trying to cover this.

This is the sort of story covered by foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, not a beat reporter working the gaming industry. We'll probably start seeing stories from them as the information becomes more and more widespread and accessable, but until then, it's the sort of stuff people die trying to report.

 

[Khanimus]

Can't be criticizing console manufacturers while hoping for Mario/God of War/Halo codes for reviews.

 

[nofriendo]

Because they are video game journalists. I wouldn't expect sport journalists to cover this either and perhaps you are setting unreal expectations here.

Now, if you want to question why it is not being covered more by mainstream news organizations then that's a more legitimate conversation.

 

[Nightbird]

Because gaming Journalism is just extended PR for the gaming companies.

There's just a few people in that field that can and will talk about those kind of things.

But, we also have to realize that this is not something like sexual abuse or inhuman crunching, we're those with good connections can break stories like these.

We're talking about what's essentially genocide in a country that does its absolute best to control the information that gets outside. So the stuff a gaming journalist can talk about will be a repeat of stuff that was breaking in newspapers.

And I really doubt that pressing the PR person of a company will yield insight on what drove the upper management to look over genocide in order to sell more devices.

Long story short: While the sentiment is a good one, I fear that this topic is too big for what is extended cooperate PR. And those few that actually do journalism can't do much that isn't repeating what bigger papers broke without having their own internal sources (which, given the topic, is not very reasonable to expect)

 

[Madao]

First of all, this. A million times this.

Then, they'd have to admit the overall hypocrisy of only caring about causes that wouldn't put an end to their main hobby, at least temporarily, as all major constructors benefit from the "free" workforce in Uighur majority areas.


edit: to the poster above, Madao, well I wonder where you get your news from then. It's covered on a regular basis in international media outlets.

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local news as in the news outlets from my country. they don't do reports on this at all. what can i do about those outlets being garbage?

i do know of the issue thanks to this forum as mentioned and a few people who retweet related news.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

Because they are video game journalists. I wouldn't expect sport journalists to cover this either and perhaps you are setting unreal expectations here.

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If a big player in your industry involved in something like this they sure as hell can repost the news from the actual journalists with source citations.

Besides, I'm pretty sure sport focused magazines were giving NBA and other organizations a lot of flak when they decided to train in China or something citing Uighur issues and Hong Kong as the reason.

 

[KDR_11k]

I think the issue hits practically everything from China so all they could do is repost general news. Game journos are definitely not going to investigate government sanctioned genocide in China, that's too dangerous for their pay grade. Leave that to the people who know how to handle investigating repressive regimes.

 

[Kolx]

Because they don't wanna ruin their relation with Chinese pubs. It matters more to them than human lives.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

I think the issue hits practically everything from China so all they could do is repost general news. Game journos are definitely not going to investigate government sanctioned genocide in China, that's too dangerous for their pay grade. Leave that to the people who know how to handle investigating repressive regimes.

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Can they at least look for sources within Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft/Nvidia etc.? I don't think anyone expects them to fly to China to pressure Xi.

 

[nofriendo]

If a big player in your industry involved in something like this they sure as hell can repost the news from the actual journalists with source citations.

Besides, I'm pretty sure sport focused magazines were giving NBA and other organizations a lot of flak when they decided to train in China or something citing Uighur issues and Hong Kong as the reason.

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I get your point but I still think these are unreal expectations for people who are reporting on video games news. B-dubs put it well in his post above.

 

[B-Dubs]

If a big player in your industry involved in something like this they sure as hell can repost the news from the actual journalists with source citations.

Besides, I'm pretty sure sport focused magazines were giving NBA and other organizations a lot of flak when they decided to train in China or something citing Uighur issues and Hong Kong as the reason.

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That's not how reporting works though. No reporter worth their salt is going to be reporting what someone else reports without getting independent confirmation for themselves. Unless there's like, video of it happening. People have gotten burned big time for reporting stuff without confirmation.

 

[KDR_11k]

Can they at least look for sources within Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft/Nvidia etc.? I don't think anyone expects them to fly to China to pressure Xi.

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This stuff gets mixed into the low levels of the production chain, I'm not sure those companies even willingly use that slave labor so much as every supplier just uses it and they have no other option.

 

[nofriendo]

Can they at least look for sources within Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft/Nvidia etc.? I don't think anyone expects them to fly to China to pressure Xi.

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There is a massive difference between looking for sources to "leak" some video game news versus what's at risk in this sort of investigation. Even if someone was willing to risk this, do you think they would do it to Kotaku ? Or maybe to a better equipped, knowledgeable outlet from mainstream news ?

 

[sirap]

Obviously these issues are important, but they're gaming sites. I'm not going to rag on them for not reporting on non-gaming things. That's for the regular media to report on. Just my two cents.

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Consoles are made using Uyghur slaves. I'm not expecting them to fly to China and go undercover for a year, but a retweet or two would've been nice.

Unfortunately, even the bare minimum seems to be too much for them.

 

[henhowc]

I wouldn't expect gaming journalists to have the wherewithal to cover something like this properly anyways.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

That's not how reporting works though. No reporter worth their salt is going to be reporting what someone else reports without getting independent confirmation for themselves. People have gotten burned big time for that.

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So, the best course of action is to remain silent and not draw attention to the situation no matter how dire the circumstances are? Ok.

 

[B-Dubs]

So, the best course of action is to remain silent and not draw attention to the situation no matter hoe dire the circumstances are? Ok.

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Where did I say that?

 

[Death Penalty]

I mean let's be real here, the apathy goes both ways. The general audience of these outlets and gaming in general doesn't really want to hear about these issues. Even here on Era hype for the PS5 was and is through the roof despite the consoles being manufactured with slave labor, and we had a sticky thread at the top of the forum for ages about the issue.

 

[Soap]

Because games journalism isn't real journalism, is just another form of advertisement.

And when a real story breaks, that journalist is treated like shit.

See cyberpunk.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

Where did I say that?

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Well, if they can't do journalism and can't even retweet/repost the stuff the others do then it's only logical for them to remain silent.

 

[David Addison]

Since this forum has a journalistic presence here, I'd like to ask, is there any reason why this story isn't getting covered? Is it an editorial stance? Or crunch is the only issue gaming journalists and their editors think is worth investigating in this industry?

I understand that this is might be unfair and nobody wants to burn bridges, but in my mind, this just shows that ad revenue and clicks during hype cycles mean more than the genuine coverage of the horrible situation.

Click to shrink...

"This might be unfair, but blah blah blah corrupt press paid off by Chinese blood money. Discuss." -- actual OP

Like, what does "genuine coverage" entail, exactly? Are you demanding a bunch of barely-hanging-on gaming sites mount a clandestine intelligence-gathering operation in a totalitarian police state on the other side of the planet with zero legal protection from being imprisoned, tortured, or murdered?

 

[Herb Alpert]

The gaming industry does not have journalists.

Click to shrink...

This

If they criticize the big brands they won't get their exclusivities anymore and won't be able to work as PR people/hype machines pretending to be journalists.

Honestly I'd prefer pay 50€ more my console and have it built in healthier conditions. I think there's a market for that, brands should look into it.

 

[Patapuf]

Theu don't care because it doesn't give clicks.

It is fucked up.

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"it doesn't give clicks" means the audience doesn't care and isn't willing to pay for what would a pretty major investment in rescources for a topic most gaming outlet aren't equipped to cover.

All outlets that attempted to do indepth reporting and features as their main thing went bust, patreon or were heavily downsized. People vastly overestimate the rescources available at gaming sites.

 

[GMM]

The majority of games journalists are not journalists at all, or do any real journalistic work at all, they are just advertisers or entertainers peddling the products of companies paying them directly or indirectly.

What needs to change is the willingness to actually discuss politics and show solidarity with outlets being punished for reporting on the actual truth, nothing will change if no one talks about the issues and those few that do should be listened to.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

"it doesn't give clicks" means the audience doesn't care and isn't willing to pay for what would a pretty major investment in rescources for a topic most gaming outlet aren't equipped to cover.

All outlets that attempted to do indepth reporting and features as their main thing went bust, patreon or were heavily downsized. People vastly overestimate the rescources available at gaming sites.

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I don't care if they do a very big article. Just something that would report that it is happening once in a while is good enough. If everyone did it people will start noticing after a while.

 

[B-Dubs]

Well, if they can't do journalism and can't even retweet/repost the stuff the others do then it's only logical for them to remain silent.

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Where did I talk about tweets? I was talking about legitimate reporting, not posting on Twitter.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

Like, what does "genuine coverage" entail, exactly? Are you demanding a bunch of barely-hanging-on gaming sites mount a clandestine intelligence-gathering operation in a totalitarian police state on the other side of the planet with zero legal protection from being imprisoned, tortured, or murdered?

Click to shrink...

I've already said it about a million times in this thread, but they can look for insiders within corps, nobody expects them to go full James Bond in China.

 

[Rosebud]

As far as I know journalists need to get evidence, interviews etc. themselves. And we know that's almost impossible. They can't just copy/paste BBC or whatever.

Is any other tech industry covering it? I really don't like these "they are not REAL journalists" takes.

Because they won't wanna ruin their relation with Chinese pubs. It matter more to them than human lives.

Click to shrink...

Any journalist covering a dictatorship is risking much more than free games.

 

[Ramsay]

I apologise if this sounds insensitive, but getting most gamers to care about crunch at CDPR/Rockstar/insert AAA studio is already enough of an uphill battle - so getting gamers to care about Uighur slave labour is going to be near-impossible. Hence, there's no money to be made about reporting on Uighur slave labour, and gaming media outlets are simply going to ignore it - especially given how difficult it is to report from China, of all places.

 

[KillLaCam]

They're gaming journalists, this doesn't have much to do with gaming ,since most of our electronics are made with some kinda slave labor anyway. Uighurs building consoles isnt gonna be any different or generate clicks. People barely care about devs having to crunch, theyre not gonna care about some unknown Uighurs in a factory somewhere.

Plus a huge amount of the stuff they'd have to work with would be pretty vague or be sourced from some Epoch times backed stuff which would create more issues.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

Every gaming site I read has covered this story. I suspect that's why everyone in this thread seems familiar with the issue.

 

[Fowler]

I've already said it about a million times in this thread, but they can look for insiders within corps, nobody expects them to go full James Bond in China.

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How do you know that nobody's tried? For all you know, gaming reporters have been asking around but nobody's biting. If nobody wants to talk, you don't have a story.

I thought B-Dubs summed it up quite well -- if you want to get this right, you need to invest serious time and effort into this. I've worked at multiple outlets that have written Uighur stories (I don't work in games media). Given how touchy and aggressive China is about -anything-, you need to be double, triple, QUADRUPLE sure about everything in your reporting.

(And fwiw, I don't know who inside those companies you mention would take a huge risk in speaking out about this.)

 

[Jegriva]

Frankly, no one in the gaming sphere has the sources needed to report this story. If you want to report this story you need sources in China willing to talk about it. These are the kinds of sources that foreign correspondents at places like the BBC and NYTimes spend entire careers cultivating. And frankly, no editor is going to pay for a trip to China for a gaming journalist to cover this from that angle. Expecting dudes that normally report on stuff like crunch or release delays to have the sources needed to report this is just silly. This isn't the sort of story where you just dial a guy at Blizzard or Nintendo, this is REAL journalism and it's the sort of thing people risk their lives to report. Y'all are acting like this is easy, that it's a matter of a few phone calls. The BBC has talked about reporters literally being chased out of China by dudes in trucks for just trying to cover this.

BuzzFeed has a 4 part expose on this and there was a year's gap between parts 3 and 4. They literally had to track down a refugee camp in the middle east to find sources. There was over a year between the BBC first reporting it and the new stories they're putting out. This is happening in a country that ain't exactly friendly to journalists in the first place and they'll be even less friendly when they find out someone's trying to cover this.

This is the sort of story covered by foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, not a beat reporter working the gaming industry. We'll probably start seeing stories from them as the information becomes more and more widespread and accessable, but until then, it's the sort of stuff people die trying to report.

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Wow, that's a thousands times more explicative, accurate and better written than the answer I was trying to collect in my head.

 

[Shoshi]

I hope the really horrible news from BBC some days ago are too fresh for the gaming journalists and that they are working on articles as we speak

 

[Puroresu_kid]

Because they are video game journalists. I wouldn't expect sport journalists to cover this either and perhaps you are setting unreal expectations here.

Now, if you want to question why it is not being covered more by mainstream news organizations then that's a more legitimate conversation.

Click to shrink...

Sports journalism has plenty deep investigative journalists.

 

[Firestorm]

Frankly, no one in the gaming sphere has the sources needed to report this story. If you want to report this story you need sources in China willing to talk about it. These are the kinds of sources that foreign correspondents at places like the BBC and NYTimes spend entire careers cultivating. And frankly, no editor is going to pay for a trip to China for a gaming journalist to cover this from that angle. Expecting dudes that normally report on stuff like crunch or release delays to have the sources needed to report this is just silly. This isn't the sort of story where you just dial a guy at Blizzard or Nintendo, this is REAL journalism and it's the sort of thing people risk their lives to report. Y'all are acting like this is easy, that it's a matter of a few phone calls. The BBC has talked about reporters literally being chased out of China by dudes in trucks for just trying to cover this.

BuzzFeed has a 4 part expose on this and there was a year's gap between parts 3 and 4. They literally had to track down a refugee camp in the middle east to find sources. There was over a year between the BBC first reporting it and the new stories they're putting out. This is happening in a country that ain't exactly friendly to journalists in the first place and they'll be even less friendly when they find out someone's trying to cover this.

This is the sort of story covered by foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, not a beat reporter working the gaming industry. We'll probably start seeing stories from them as the information becomes more and more widespread and accessable, but until then, it's the sort of stuff people die trying to report.

Click to shrink...

People seriously need to read this. What the fuck are most of the replies in this thread. It's like y'all don't do anything but play video games and have no understanding of how the world works.

 

[Djalminha]

Echoing the press statements that companies send them, reporting on E3, doing interviews only before and not after games come out, respecting embargoes to make sure their reviews are as early as possible and they keep free copies of games, trying to have good relationships with gaming companies... The vast majority of what we call gaming press is just another form of entertainment media, their job is not to be critic of the medium, it's to contribute to the marketing machine and try to get a slice of that pie. How many do actually pick up the phone and try to do some investigating reporting? How many have received any training to do so?

There are some great exceptions, but the vast majority don't know anything about journalism nor do they intend to.

Edit: to those saying gaming media don't have the resources to do the kind of investigation uncovering something like this requires, yes that is true. HOWEVER, that doesn't prevent them from reporting and echoing the work of professional journalists and those reporters with resources who risk their lives. They choose not to report that kind of stuff. If an ERA poster can be aware of it and write about it to improve visibility, so can they. They don't because, again, they are not journalists.

 

[RRW]

Proper big journalist having difficulty to cover this subject and you expect much smaller and less professional gaming journalist to do the same?
There is not much direct connection between Uighurs and gaming other than Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft have blame using them in the manufacturing process and it already covered. So unless there is info regarding Uigyurs directly involved making a game (as programming slaves or something else). I doubt we get much from gaming journalist.

Sure you can retweet all "china is bad" news but few of them relevant to gaming which may actually ruin your career as a games journalist.

 

[Rosebud]

People seriously need to read this. What the fuck are most of the replies in this thread. It's like y'all don't do anything but play video games and have no understanding of how the world works.

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Yeah, we can't be mad at people because they aren't willing to risk their lives/family/career to do something like that while we talk anonymously on Era.