#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (Hard news)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote> 

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

Here’s another confession for ya’ll. I really, I mean REALLY, do not like writing hard news. Now, some of you might be wondering what hard news is. I can tell you what it is not.

Hard news is not an actual physical representation of events of the day that is so tough that it is solid and can walk around and deflect your puny mortal life with a backhand that rivals that of many Wimbledon champions. I totally wish hard news was that. Hard news is what the news industry calls stuff like political reporting, crime reporting, local government reporting. Stuff that matters and is important. Everything else is special interest, detour, opinion, or features. That being said, I shall explain why I do not like hard news.

There’s something to be said about the proud and noble journalistic profession that used to exist. The old fedora with the press ticket in the brim, bullpens and the smell of cigarettes and the sound of typewriters, all the glamor and romance that was journalism and beat reporting. I don’t really feel like that exists anymore. Maybe it’s because I want to live my life out like the DC Comics character The Question, a hard-nosed investigative reporter who hunts for facts without a face at night and reports on the seedy deeds by day on the air, but I just don’t feel like the news industry is the same as it used to be.

 

I don’t like hard news because it all seems to be bad news. Someone died, there’s a plague here, the economy is bad, this candidate is awful, our government’s in trouble, it just goes on.

Granted, we need to know these things. It is vital and our right as citizens to know these things. However, if I had to report on them I would either drink myself into a numbing stupor or go about as postal as a freaking lunatic and shoot something up. It’s a personal thing. I’m not saying they’re bad or we shouldn’t know them. That’s not it. But I just can’t do it. I mean, if I spent my entire day talking to people who have been harmed by the government in some way I’d just be utterly depressed. Crime scene reporting? Forget it, nightmare central. That’s really what it is.

There’s also the aspect of having to rely on someone to get back to you for a quote or setting time aside to do an interview and relying on them to give you something good or juicy for a story. I like interviews, I like doing them, that’s why we do them on The Vault and we will continue to do so. But calling the DA’s office and maybe getting a response three hours before deadline makes me want to piss my pants from anxiety. I can’t rest my reputation on someone else’s time schedule while they try to find the most politically correct way to call someone else out or talk about this that or the other thing. When we ask someone to be interviewed, we give them a weeks ahead of time to know what we’re going to ask them and in the week before we send them some sample questions so they even have a few more days to prep so when the interview goes down, it’s fluid and easy. That is more ideal for me than phoning the PR office of some company and getting an on-the-spot quote.

Every now and then I get these feelings in my gut about the kind of reporting I’m doing when I got to classes and we study Pulitzer Prize winners, or war coverage, or we’re asked to write fairly bland hard news stories for the school paper. I worry that my choice of vocation is a disservice to all of the stuff I’m learning and when we do those stupid ice-breakers around the room at the beginning of the semester and this person says political reporting, foreign correspondence, and sportscasting, I’m the only one that says videogame journalism.

Do I feel like everyone is looking down on me or giving me that weird look that girls give a guy when he says he watched My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? Absolutely. Do I feel ashamed for about 3.4 seconds in that room amongst peers and a professor who has been the Sunday editor of a real paper for over ten years? Yup. But then I think about what I do.

I’m the guy that gets to go to development studios and play videogames and calls it work. I’m the guy that has the personal numbers of developers who are viewed as gods in his cell phone. I go out on Wednesdays and rub elbows with really fantastic talent and get to pick their brains about the industry. I’m living the dream. I chose a subject I could stand and get behind and put my best effort into. Does that make me a wuss, a non-hacker in the world of REAL news? Maybe. But, I’m happy with what I do, and isn’t that all that matters?

#nerdsunite

Want more from John? Click here to follow him on the twitter!

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