GamerNode: Columns - Fox News' Bias Against Gaming is an Insult to Journalism

Fox News' Bias Against Gaming is an Insult to Journalism

As a journalist, nothing aggravates or infuriates me professionally more than seeing a news media outlet showing blatant bias towards a subject. It goes against everything I was taught in college, as the primary rule of being a journalist is to analyze a story and try to see both sides. To see this cardinal rule of journalism broken by so-called "fair and balanced" or "well respected" news outlets makes me want to punch holes in walls.

It should go without saying that the most recent example of Fox News' complete bias against the videogame industry, the industry that I love dearly and write about, has infuriated me to no end. So much so that I have dedicated this latest edition of my column to Fox News' completely ignorant coverage of games and the industry.

This most recent incident occurred on the network's Fox & Friends program. The show featured Infinity Ward and Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and what they called a game that "let's you be a terrorist and kill people." The host of the "fair and balanced" debate had an obviously nervous and unprepared Jon Christensen of Slash Gamer defending the game.

The piece was focused on a mission in the game where you play as an undercover CIA operative who has infiltrated a terrorist organization and is forced to take part in an airport massacre in order to get close to the group's leader. This mission however, is completely optional and the player is warned on several occasions how disturbing the scene may be and offers the player a chance to skip the mission on each occasion. This is a fact that was completely left out of the piece and wasn't even brought up by Christensen.

The optional mission is all the host of the show brings up about the game and continues to urge that children can get a hold of this game. Christensen then states that the game is rated M for Mature and game retailers have turned away underage consumers looking to buy the game. Despite this fact, the host still says if a game is brought into a house, what is to stop a child from playing it?

It is here where I personally was floored with Fox News' host's ignorance. Just to try to drive home to some unintelligent viewer that their kids could be in danger from playing this optional mission, he essentially states that only neglectful parents and/or siblings could be responsible for children being exposed to the content. In which case, he has completely ruined his own argument and yet speaks with a demeanor suggesting he's just stumped Christensen.

Even the man Fox News had on the program who they believed would bash the game for them, Common Sense media CEO Jim Steyer, admits that the content is only too violent depending on who is playing the game. When that happens, the host has the nerve to cut Steyer off. However, he does allow Steyer later on in the story to continue to make his point.

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