Let’s Edit: Owen Good’s “Promoter Sues Microsoft Over Kinect Launch Event”
A lot of factors go into a poor piece of writing. Shaky command of the language is one of them–there’s nothing worse than a writer who can’t write. Undeveloped thoughts are another–if you don’t go in with an idea of what you want to say, your writing will be formless and incoherent. Far more dangerous is when an article looks good on the surface but is incomplete–points are unresearched and certain issues are not addressed. When, as happens so often on videogame sites, the research phase consists of “let’s find a press release or an article on another site” and the writing phase is simply “let’s paraphrase it sentence-by-sentence and hope no one notices”, these problems deepen. It’s like a game of telephone: If you’re simply rewriting an article which might not have been the most complete to begin with, any factual errors or omissions will only be compounded.
This isn’t always entirely the writers’ fault. Someone needs to edit the article. Whether it’s rewriting sentences that don’t flow as well as the writer intended, correcting factual errors, or pointing out areas which should be developed further, all formal pieces of writing need that editorial pass–all writing is bad until it’s been fixed by a good editor. That most videogame journalism is bad indicates that most of its editors don’t really do anything–or that they certainly don’t do it well.
Owen Good’s April 10, 2011 Kotaku article “Promoter Sues Microsoft Over Kinect Launch Event” commits nearly all of those sins I mentioned earlier–there are several sentence-level errors, it’s essentially a direct rewrite of an article from AdWeek, and Good does not do any additional research or probe any deeper. Good is Kotaku’s weekend editor, but it doesn’t seem as if he took that role seriously for his own article. A read-through of the piece makes it very clear that there’s a lot more work that needed to be done. Let’s edit.
(Original text of the post in italics. My comments in bold.)
Remember the Times Square launch event for Kinect last fall? [Beginning with a yes/ no question is a very lazy way to start an article. In addition, I--and many of your readers--don't remember the launch event. Who was there? What happened? When was it? While you should have looked up some first-hand accounts of the event, your single source--the AdWeek article, which isn’t a first-hand account--includes a summary of what occurred.] It took some begging, pleading, and cold hard cash just to happen, when the cops made the a last-minute discovery: a The full- blown concert didn’t have the requisite permits. [This entire opening is unclear. You seem to use the word “event” to refer to both the whole event--demos, performances, sales--and to just the concert. As a result, I can’t tell from your description what exactly the police wanted to shut down.] The promoter who made all the bad stuff go away [Don’t try to be cute] says Microsoft owes him $63,000 for it. [Misleading. The lawsuit is against three parties--Microsoft, the ad agency Mother, and Microsoft executive Craig McNary. The three parties combined allegedly owe the promoter roughly $63,000.]
When Ne-Yo [pictured] [Notice how AdWeek first refers to him as "R&B singer Ne-Yo". Don't assume that your readership, which is international, knows that Ne-Yo is an American singer] showed up to serenade the crowd waiting to buy the first Kinect [Were they only selling one?] sold in North America, the gathering became something a little more complex than what police had been told to expect. [It didn't become more complex. The police allegedly weren’t given all the information.] The event coordinator, the agency P.R.omotion!, “sweet-talked the NYPD and promised to pay $45,000 in fines,” if they let it continue, reports AdWeek.
Now the company has sued Microsoft, a New York ad agency, [The AdWeek article names the ad agency--Mother. Why did you leave it out of your article?] and the Microsoft Xbox executive Craig McNary, for stiffing them on the back end. P.R.omotion [The company has an exclamation point in the name (P.R.omotion!). Be consistent and use their correct name.] says the three parties should pay the $63,150 it absorbed in fines, legal fees and other costs associated with fixing everything. [Much of the lawsuit hinges on whose responsibility it was to file the permits. The implication is that the defendants were in charge of completing the proper paperwork and paying the appropriate fees, and that, for whatever reason, they did not do this. P.R.omotion! negotiated with the authorities and paid the fines so that the concert could continue; its case is based on its belief that the fault lies with Microsoft, Mother, and McNary and, therefore, it is their responsibility to pay the fines. But who does the fault lie with, exactly? Do some research here: Did P.R.omotion! make a mistake, did Microsoft/McNary, or did Mother?]
“I’ve never had to do this, ever, and my clients are the biggest in the country,” Tom Hennigan, P.R.omotion’s [“P.R.omotion!’s”] owner, told AdWeek. “It’s unfortunate that this happened.” [What function does this quote serve? Why did you include it? It serves no purpose in your article.]
Hennigan says he warned everyone that New York authorities didn’t like surprises. [I realize you're trying to avoid plagiarism and so you simply paraphrased the AdWeek article's sentence "Hennigan’s company claims in its suit that it stressed to Microsoft and Mother that the city was highly adverse to changes", but that's slightly different from what seems to have happened. They didn't simply "surprise" the city of New York--they didn’t file the required permits.] Thirty minutes before the first Kinect was sold, police threatened to shut the whole thing down because no one said Ne-Yo would be there. [Phrased this way, it seems almost like the issue had something to do with the police not being fans of Ne-Yo. I'd assume that Ne-Yo's performance classified the event as an outdoor concert, and that outdoor concert permits had not been filed--but finding this out is your job.] Says P.R.omotion’s [“P.R.omotion!’s”] lawsuit, McNary directed the planner to “negotiate with the city to ensure that the event would proceed.”
Microsoft and the other ad agency named both declined comment to AdWeek. [Not only should Kotaku have sources at Microsoft to whom you could talk, this sentence is factually untrue. While AdWeek was indeed unable to get a quote from Microsoft, they did speak to someone at Mother. The final paragraph of the AdWeek article reads, in part: “‘We asked P.R.omotion! to provide back up invoices or receipts for said fine and he was unable to provide them,’ said Tom Webster, a partner at Mother. ‘This is something we'd prefer to handle out of court.’"]
At the end of the day, we’re left with one important question: What, exactly, is the point of this article? We see this all the time at sites like Kotaku: An article which consists of a paraphrased press release, of a rewritten interview, of another writer’s reportage–with no added original content. Owen Good’s writeup adds nothing to the AdWeek article. AdWeek concentrates on the story from a public relations and marketing perspective. Kotaku’s readers and writers are interested in videogame culture. And yet, this treatment of the story does not add anything from that perspective. In fact, Good’s article also seems directed towards advertising professionals rather than videogame fans. There is literally nothing to this rewrite that could not have been accomplished with a brief summary and a link to the AdWeek article. The time spent writing this article was time wasted–it is a poorly written article with no reason to exist.
One of the stock excuses employed by the likes of Ben Paddon and Jim Sterling is: I’m not a journalist, I’m a blogger/pundit/commentator. The rigor of journalistic ethics, of the research process, of editing, does not apply to them. Since they’re not doing straight reportage, they’re allowed to slap together any old thing and should not be held accountable for any errors. They simply don’t need to be held to any particular standard. We, of course, do not agree with this opinion–but a depressingly large number of readers don’t seem to mind.
Good’s article, however, is straight reportage. To his credit, he has written an article which is free from commentary and which lays out the unembellished facts. It’s sad that this makes his article notable. However, his article asks no questions, contains no new content, and features no additional insight–it is simply a clumsy paraphrase of another reporter’s work. There is no excuse for this. Good cannot hide behind “punditry”: This is a news article and must be judged as such. Good has failed to perform the basic research necessary for writing an article like this. The editorship of Kotaku has failed to demand more of him, has failed to clean up his writing. Kotaku’s readership has failed to realize that this is not the best that news writing can be. And the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University, which, according to Good’s LinkedIn profile, awarded him a Master’s of Science in Journalism in 2000, has failed to impress upon him that articles like this are, quite simply, not enough.
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