Bethesda Softworks - Interview @ SPOnG

SPOnG has an interview with Pete Hines, ostensibly about the release of the PS3 version of Oblivion but wandering onto Fallout 3 and some general areas.  Since the PS3 stuff is pedestrian and there's nothing revealing about Fallout 3, here's a bit that might relate to some recent debates we've seen:

SPOnG: With that in mind, on the one hand there are numerous pretty good websites and blogs out there… and plenty of good, so-called citizen journalists and whatnot, but then on the other side you have loads of far less reputable sites, dressed up as 'professional' journalism…

Pete Hines: Absolutely. It is a problem that we see a lot. Folks passing themselves off as journalists, who don't act as journalists. They'll run and print anything they hear from anybody as news purely in an effort to try and scoop the other guy because, as you said, there are now all these 'citizen reporters' and so they're always trying to get the drop on the other guy… putting out some piece of information first.

And it doesn't seem to matter in many cases whether they've taken the words out of context, or twisted somebody's meaning or just completely missed the point altogether. So, y'know, it is an issue and - going back to my previous point - you have to take pretty much everything you read on the internet with regards to what's actual and what's the reality with regards to this game, or this platform or whatever with a pinch of salt because of that.