#GamerGate: Statement of Professional Conduct for Video Game

Statement of Professional Conduct for Video Game Journalist

Purpose
In light of the “Zoe Quinn” debacle, the journalist integrity and professional conduct have been pulled into question.  Many journalist had romantic and financial relationships with video game developers and would write articles and editorials that would response favorably to those individuals.  Meanwhile, journalist would write negative articles about other game developers while ignoring negative information about those who they had a relationship with.  Furthermore, journalist have been pushing their own agendas and have not approached their profession in an independent light.  There is further question of journalist writing favorably about games that the website received ad revenue from or because the company gave them gifts.  Though there are numerous accounts of game journalist behaving in unethical  and unprofessional ways, the “Zoe Quinn” debacle is the most prevalent of corruption in video game journalism.  In order to maintain journalistic integrity and ethics, these statement have been created to ensure a certain level of professional conduct for readers and other stockholder.



These statements apply to anyone who is writing professionally about video games in any form or fashion including, but not limited to, reviews of games, previews of games, stories about game developers, stories about game conventions or culture ect.  To ensure the journalistic integrity journalist are to follow all standards set forth in the statements.

For the purpose of the statement, the statement applies to any website or company which purpose is to write articles, opinion pieces, or reviews about video games.  The statement applies to anyone who receives games from game companies for review.  The statements do not apply if all if all of the following conditions are met:
1. The website is a blog and does not promote itself as a video game news site
2. No more than five writes are writing for the website (this includes anyone who is a temporary writer)
3. The website, or persons, does not make a significant portion of its income from revenue related to articles about videogames
4. The website or company does not receive copies of games for review from publishers or receive access to “close door” media events
Any website, blog, ect not cover may still state they are in compliance with the Statement of Professional Conduct for Video Game Journalist if they comply with all the standards set forth.  Websites and companies covered above must comply with all standards.  If not, websites should disclose on the home page of their website in clear, readable text that they do not comply with the standards set forth in the statement.  They may only remove this text if the website takes action to return to compliance with the standards and, at a minimum, has been approved by an independent third party.  If an independent review is not possible or feasible, the website must disclose the corrective action.

1. Independence

A journalist must, at all time, remain independent of the persons or company in which they are writing articles or editorial pieces. Independence is impaired if any of the following occurs
1. The writer has given or received any monetary compensation from a company or person with whom they are writing articles or editorials about, or if the journalist has given any monetary compensation to the person, company, or another organization of which they are a part of.
2. The journalist receives material gifts in a a 3 month prior before and after writing an article or editorial about the person or company
3. The journalist has a romantic relation with the person they are writing articles or editorials about or if they are writing about a company or their products if they have a romantic relationship with someone who owns more than 5 percent of the company or is a senior or executive manager at the company. Romantic relationships include sexual relationships and marriage.
4. The journalist owns more than 5 percent of the company or is an senior or executive manager of which the journalist is writing about.
If at any time independence is impaired, the journalist is not allowed to write an article about the person or company.  The journalist may write editorials if independence is impaired; however, if the journalist writes an editorial where they are not independent, the journalist must state, in clear writing, that they are not independent and must disclose the relationship they have.  If there are multiple instances where independence is impaired (such that a person is married to an executive manager of a company in which the person is writing about) all instances must be stated.  The statement must be before the body of the article and must be bolded and 2 font points larger than the body of the editorial. If more than one font size is used, the size of the statement must be two points greater than the largest font.

If an article was published and it was later discovered that independence was impaired when the article was written, the article should include a statement that describes all instances where independence was impaired and cited in the same fashion in an editorial state above. The article should then be reviewed and, if needed, revised by another journalist who is independent of the person of company of whom they write about.  Furthermore, the third party will have full control over the content and subsequent revisions of the article.  They should be listed as an author of the article.  Furthermore, the third party can not have any relation to the original author as mentioned above in a three month period before the independent third party became the new author and three months after the final revision.  Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the chief editor and senior management to ensure the parties remain independent at all time.

2. Disclosure
For the purpose of the statements, an editorial is any piece which expresses an opinion, be it the authors or someone else's. Editorials do not include the following.
1. Game reviews and Previews
2. Articles about a Press Release of a Company
3. Articles about financial report
4. Articles which discuss a rumor or leak (as long a noted as such)

All editorial pieces must include that editorial is wholly the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions of the website or company in which they work or other staff members. At a minimum, the aforementioned statement should be bolded and be at least 2 font points greater than the body of the article.  If more than one font size is used, the size of the statement must be two points greater than the largest font.  The statement must appear before the body of the editorial.

Furthermore, the intent of the article should be, at all times, clear for the reader.  Reviews, Previews, Rumors, or Leaks should always include the aforementioned in the title of the article.


Supervisory Over site

It is the responsibility of the chief editor and senior management to ensure that, at all time, the website or company is adhering to the standards of this statement.  The chief editor and senior management must ensure that journalist are behaving in a professional manor and that articles and editorials are not in violation of the standards.

At least annually, the chief editor and senior management must staff an independent review of the journalist staff and articles and editorials written to ensure that they comply with the standards.  The independent review can not be conducted by other journalist that have written articles or editorials for the website or who are employed by the company in any fashion.  It is recommended that independent journalist conduct the independent review although it is not required.  The independent review must detail what they reviewed and how they arrived at their conclusion.  He report should be presented to senior management and, if possible, the Board of Directors for the company.  Furthermore, the independent review staff may not have any relation to the journalist staff or to any person or company of which the journalist have written about within the last 24 months.