Five Journalists Who Would Rock the Games Industry...If They Covered Games, That Is

Meghan_ventura_bitmob
Thursday, August 05, 2010

Editor's note: Meghan carries on a conversation started on a recent Mobcast with this post. And here's my pick: Chuck Klosterman. -Demian


Not too long ago (this is still relevant, I pinky swear), the guests on Mobcast #63 discussed the “difficulties of finding a unique voice in game coverage” and listed several non-games writers who they would like to see write about the industry. Which got me thinking, who would be on my own list?

So I put together my dream team, mostly pulled from my past magazine-feature-writing courses (thank you, Professor Price), as well as articles and books I've read. Take a look at my picks, see if you agree or disagree, and, in the comments section, add your list of non-games writers, bloggers, journalists, novelists, content creators, etc., who you'd like to see apply their talents to our industry.

And in no particular order, my fave five:

Gay Talese
Talese’s Frank Sinatra Has a Cold is still one of the most brilliant magazine stories I’ve ever read. Talese writes an incredibly personal story about Frank Sinatra that's chockfull of superb description and analogies without ever actually interviewing Sinatra. That's some mad skill.

I would love to do a story like this on, say, someone like Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideki Kamiya, or someone in the games industry who has a crazy creative process.

(NOTE: Despite what I expected, Talese's name makes a surprisingly safe Google Image search.)

 

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Susan Orlean
I. Love. Her. Style. Susan Orlean is amazing at converting mundane aspects of life into incredibly interesting stories, and exploring even the most niche subcultures.

In the book New, New Journalism, (highly recommend for aspiring magazine writers) she describes what subjects she prefers to write about:

“I’m not an ‘investigative reporter,’ in that I don’t look for the ‘secret story’ or try to discover the machinations behind something. I love stumbling on an idea, or something, and thinking, ‘Oh my God, this has been here in front of me all along!’ My stories tend to fall into two categories: The part of daily life  that you’ve never stopped to think about, and the fully realized subculture that I don’t know anything about.”

For crying out loud, she makes orchids and orchid fanatics interesting and wrote a whole book about them in The Orchid Thief.  I’d love to see her cover subcultures like 4chan or LAN gaming.

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Eric Schlosser
His book Fast Food Nation completely changed my perception of what “knowing the industry” means. After reading that book, I can’t help but come away with the feeling that there’s not a corner of the fast food industry he hasn’t seen.

I’m not suggesting that our current games writers don’t have similarly voluminous knowledge of their subject, but Schlosser just digs in a way that’s relentless. He also has a knack for presenting otherwise boring statistics in a very entertaining manner, with colorful anecdotes and stories from his sources.

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Chris Jones
I’m not sure where Chris Jones would fit in covering the games industry, but he’s a very brilliant, highly entertaining writer, so I'm sure he'd figure it out. I’d love to see his voice in the games press.

I started reading his work after I came across the story Home, a poetic, gripping tale of two astronauts stranded in space. The whole story somehow has a lonely but beautiful Shadow of the Colossus vibe to it. I recommend checking out the rest of his work at Esquire.com.

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Jon Stewart
Stewart's not your traditional journalist, but his hilarious and snarky sarcasm often cuts to the true underlying issues of media and politics quicker than most traditional news programs.

Some pretty silly things happen in the games business; companies announce when they are going to make announcements, after all. The games industry is rife with topics to parody, and I would love to see Jon Stewart take a shot at it. Or maybe he would tell the games press that they’re all incompetent f*ckwits instead?

 

Share who you’d like to see cover the games industry! I’m looking forward to see who you come up with.


Meghan Ventura is senior editor/social media coordinator at MyGamer.com, and writes about Japanese video games and culture at her blog, KanjiGames. You can talk journalism with her and follow her on Twitter: @meghanventura.She hopes to be able to legitimately add herself to this list someday.

 
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Comments (15)
Lance_darnell
August 05, 2010

Alex Jones. If he were a journalist every publisher would live in fear!!!

This was awesome, btw!

Default_picture
August 05, 2010

Somehow I suspect Roger Ebert won't be on anyone's list...

Shoe_headshot_-_square
August 05, 2010

Jon Stewart: That's brilliant!

Fitocrop
August 05, 2010

I can picture Lester Bangs writing about the indie-gaming scene -- if he were still alive, obviously.

Default_picture
August 05, 2010

He's not really a journalist, but I'd like to see George Stroumboulopoulos interview someone like Peter Molyneux or Will Wright. Seeing as how he's on the CBC, however, those outside of Canada may not know who he is. This is his show's website:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/

Default_picture
August 06, 2010

@Eric quite the contrary -- if Roger Ebert was 60 years younger and had gotten interested in videogames rather than movies, I expect he'd be quite the game journalist. The fact that he's a bit set in his ways can't detract too much from his intelligence.

Lance_darnell
August 06, 2010

 

George Stroumboulopoulos is great, and he used to be on Sesame Street! He was Big Bird's friend.... oh wait..

Lance_darnell
August 06, 2010

 

Double comment. Um, I am going to say Gene Siskel!

Default_picture
August 06, 2010

@John: Strombo covering games?  I dunno, man, I'm not sure the industry is ready for reviews that read like Douglas Coupland novels, especially considering Doug already went partway down that road with jPod.  I guess it couldn't be any worse than the Fifth Estate episode that aired a self-contradicting appraisal of gaming a few years back, though.

Now, give me Peter Mansbridge touring Bioware Montreal and I'd be a happy viewer.

Bithead
August 06, 2010

Another Esquire guy: Tom Chiarella.  Along with Bissell (who does, apparently, write about games now) and Junod, they make my holy triumvirate of Writers Named Tom.  He'd do a wicked good analysis of a big conference like PAX or E3.

Brett_new_profile
August 06, 2010

My vote goes to film critic Anthony Lane at the New Yorker. His reviews are hilarious and insightful.

Default_picture
August 06, 2010

No mention of Hunter S. Thompson? I can picture him tripping off of psychedlics while reviewing Halo: Reach.

"We can't stop here... this is Grunt Country!"

Franksmall
August 06, 2010
My choice would be Howard Kurtz, as long as he brings the Reliable Sources show format from his show on CNN. If you haven't seen it before, it is the media talking about media coverage. It is my favorite news show, and an interesting window into the media.
Lance_darnell
August 06, 2010

LOL @Omar

Pshades-s
August 08, 2010

I vote for Michael Lewis, best known for his book Moneyball. Rather than writing a baseball book for baseball fans, he wrote a story about how one team was rethinking the way to evaluate players and operate as a business. It changed the way I view the sport.

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