I’m going to peel back the curtain here and level with you. This year, I’ve received a surprising number of requests from developers and PR teams that had me morphing into everybody’s favorite blinker-in-chief. Shout out to Drew Scanlon.Â
Those requests took the form of senior figures or account managers at PR firms asking me to edit published articles and cut remarks they or their clients made during interviews. Some of those chats took place over email. Others were held in-person at major industry events. In each instance, however, they were conversations that both myself and my interviewees had agreed would be on the record.Â
What does that phrase mean, precisely? According to ‘Writing & Reporting for the Media’Â (via Oxford University Press): “‘On the record’ attribution means that everything the source says may be published and quoted directly, and the source may be fully identified by name and title.”
It sounds straightforward enough, but the even shorter version is this: If you agree to an on-the-record chinwag with a journalist, every single word you say could be published.
This is something I’m increasingly convinced a lot of developers and PR teams do not truly appreciate, perhaps because out-and-out video game journalists are a dying breed. I’m not taking potshots at content creators or influencers here, but our circles do not overlap.
I’m not going to put anybody on blast for reaching out because I believe most of the requests I received were sent in good faith, but it’s vital developers and PR representatives understand the nature of on-the-record interviews and, more broadly, the role of journalists within the video game industry.
Journalists might be friendly—but they are not your friends
The first difficult truth to acknowledge on our collective journey might ruffle feathers, but I strongly believe this is where the problem starts.Â
Developers: journalists are not your friends.Â
They aren’t even your peers. Journalists are hired to scrutinize and report on the video game industry. In my role as a trade reporter, that means attempting to disseminate information that’s relevant to our audience at Game Developer. Sometimes that means publishing investigative pieces or reporting on layoffs to hold corporations to account. On other occasions it might be penning a deep dive into a certain game mechanic or interviewing a founder about the direction of their next lofty business endeavor.
