I wrote this originaly on MYM today, it was mostly a blog to vent my anger, but I will share my thoughts here also :)
Well hello again!
Well, I've been thinking about writing something about a certain issue within eSport journalism for quite some time now. But I crashed two computers the last weeks so I was unable to do anything about it! Well, I couldn't stand staying silent so I am at the local library writing this blog :)
Well, the issue I wanted to speak out about is eSport news sites, their news and their sources for their news. Actually, I wanna talk about their sources that they don't mention... almost never :/
A few years back, schroet.com (now SK-Gaming.com) was my main source for news reading, I never really bothered to read elsewhere, because they where usually fast. Oh god how things have changed in a few years. Well, now that I got back into eSport journalism, keeping the masses happy with news and articles, I've noticed something alarming, a lot of sites don't credit their sources... SK-gaming being one of the worst of the bunch :( altough they are improving...(Note that I'm using SK as an example because they where really bad in the past, but other sites do a lot of this too...even gotfrag..) Ok, here is an example; you guys prolly read about OmeN joining GMO on MYM.com, 12 hours later, it is up on SK-Gaming, sourcing GMO as their source... yeah whatever...
The guy that submited the news though isn't a writer for the site. I asked him once before he posted this news on where he gets his news from, since it was obvius that he didn't get it from the team page "I got my sources" he says... The issue I am refering to this time was a news that was posted on Gotfrag about a team that I couldn't remember. It was posted though around 24 hours after Gotfrag though, still it was the team site linked as the source....
I mean, as a writer I start boiling inside of me when someone takes a news from me and crediting it as their own finding. Why are they so upthight about that.
I notice that the common reader doesn't notice this, most poeple just comment "gl" or whatever, but still, it's stealing and it is noticed within the esport journalism scene... Please... credit your sources....
To qoute a comment I read earlier on another site:
"It's all about a mutual respect between rival sites. I have to say that this respect is missing/very thin these days ;[["