Open letter from IGN staff to IGN corporate, Ziff Davis, J2 Global, etc.
We, the undersigned employees of IGN, are appalled by the recent management decision to subvert our editorial autonomy and remove our post directing aid to the Palestinian civilians currently suffering a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.
Following an IGN-wide meeting this morning, we have come to understand that this was a clear instance of corporate overreach and demonstrated blatant disregard for the most basic standards of journalistic integrity and editorial independence. The business interests of a publication’s ownership and its editorial staff should stay separate at all times.
That was their first mistake. They are easily replaceable employees who appear to need a reminder of that status. They never had the “autonomy” to declare the political affiliation of the company they work for.
Nor can IGN Israel be very happy that their brand partners take great pride in being exclusively concerned about the welfare of the folks randomly shooting missiles their way. There’s some franchise fees well spent.
As noted above the initial thrust of the IGN staff was to fundraise for Palestinian children and organizations like Doctors Without Borders. Given how the reported casualties skew that seems like quite a worthwhile effort. I would have a hard time getting upset about fundraising for children impacted by open conflict regardless of what nationality, religion, or ethnic background they belong to.
And perhaps some of those dollars might be better spent teaching people not to start fights they can’t finish. Innocents getting caught in the crossfire is a damn shame, but the world is full of damn shames. Which particular shames a person decides to get “active” about is telling, no matter how high-minded and “for the children” the activism is styled.
There was a message being sent, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise once the message was received. That’s gaslighting and dishonest.
It is, indeed, telling, that there is good cancel culture for such high stances on the solution market. You wouldn’t want vidyagamez to be political about war, now, would you? Someone please think of Clancy’s estate!
I’m surprised you still believe there’s room for thinking before acting on the Internet. That died a long time ago. People saw a flag, not the reasonable explanation.
If we’re all ready to stop shooting from the hip, I’ll be the first to sign up!
Today, both Vice and Fanbyte reported on an internal memo sent to IGN staff in which chief content officer and site co-founder Peer Schneider—who’d previously implied that corporate was listening to editorial’s grievances over what seemed to be corporate interference—made an about face and placed the blame for the post’s removal on editorial.
“While our post impacts everyone at our company, this is a clear editorial process and department issue and to imply otherwise is incorrect and distracts from our goal,” said Schneider according to Vice’s report, which sources, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, have confirmed to Kotaku is accurate. “We own the power and ability to resolve this.”
This version of events conveniently removes IGN owner J2 Global and publisher Ziff Davis from what was beginning to look like a very complicated equation. In an all-hands meeting yesterday, Ziff Davis president Steve Horowitz echoed Schneider’s claims, saying that “nobody else at J2 or Ziff Davis ordered the post to go down,” nor did he. Instead, he pinned the blame on editorial as a whole, suggesting that some employees were upset by “the post and by the imagery” but that they “didn’t feel comfortable speaking up.”
It was more that only people like us would bother using it as an acronym. It arose out of a listener question on how JRPG came to be and whether all Japanese RPGs could be so labelled.
