Journalist or Gamer? [Note]
To: Ash From: Crecente Re: No, I Was Wrong, THIS Is The Best Service Ever This morning I posted a hypothetical question on my Twitter feed : Which would you hire to write about video games? An established journalist with no gaming experience, or a gamer with zero journalism experience. I included such extremes because I was curious which attribute people cared more about in someone covering video games: Journalism or a passion for video games. I was surprised at the number of people who responded . It brought up some interesting questions from all sorts of people including journalists, writers, developers and PR folks. Personally, I think journalism is more important, though I can’t imagine I’d hire someone completely new to the world of gaming. As a journalist you are supposed to be trained to tackle all subjects by researching and learning about them. Often in newspapers, the education reporters aren’t teachers, the business reporters aren’t MBAs and the police reporters aren’t former cops, lawyers, or criminals… well, not usually. Of course, often the music, book and movie critics are devotees of those subjects. Which raises an interesting point: Game journalists are expected to wear many hats. In a perfect world a person