Kevin Dent’s assault on Gerard “The Hip Hop Gamer” Williams continues. Everyone have their popcorn? This time around, Dent says that Williams’ work as a rapper and performer for videogame publishers conflicts with his role as a journalist. He implies that Williams is paid for promoting videogames, while running a web site that critiques them. Here’s an excerpt from his latest blog:
The guy could be the Mozart of rap and I am not discounting his lyrics! I am not saying that he is a bad rapper, I am saying that he is in receipt of income from these publishers.
Well he has a …. Well apparently a track- and YET as a journalist, he promotes the title…. Hello, conflict of interest? Well no, not unless he got the Money :D
The big question is whether Williams is paid by publishers or not. I have no idea if that’s the case. If it is, then I understand Dent’s point. If not, things are more nebulous.
For my part, when I was writing award-winning scripts for games, I didn’t review them. It would have been a conflict of interest and nobody would have trusted me to be objective since I was responsible for a small part of those games. Having a song featured in a game or performing at a promotional event for a game isn’t quite the same thing, but there’s involvement there that would cause people to question objectivity.
How do you feel about the issue? Do you think it’s a problem that The Hip Hop Gamer performs for videogame publishers and reviews games sold by those publishers? Or do you trust him to be objective? Perhaps you don’t care at all. Leave a comment and let me know (please!).
If he has music in the game, there are laws that say he has to get royalties. Unless of course he signed them over pre-hand.
As an artist myself, I will do just about anything to promote my art. So, I don’t blame him at all. I gotta endorse Ray’s theory about “verbal entertainment” vs “journalism”. I think Hip-Hop Gamer is more of an entertainer. Therefore, that business of “conflict of interest” is off the table since the interest is to entertain.
Now, if only Fox News and MSNBC would cop to that.
The thing with the Hip Hop Gamer is that he considers himself a journalist. I think that’s a mistake on his part. He would avoid a lot of trouble and serve himself better by fully embracing the entertainment aspect of what he does. Jon Stewart and Bill Maher occasionally report news, but they don’t consider themselves journalists.
Regardless of what we refer to ourselves as, we is what we is and we ain’t what we ain’t. Howard Stern is not actually the king of all media, nor is Chris Jericho the actual ayatollah of rock ‘n rolla.
Journalism presented as entertainment is objective by default. Otherwise, it would be boring like a newspaper. Hip-Hop Gamer is obviously going in that direction whether he sees himself that way or not.
Long and short, he’s cool. I don’t think the “conflict of interest” ethic applies to him. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole “beef” was done on purpose in order to generate “heat”.
Jericho also told me that The Undertaker isn’t actually dead. I’ll be damned.
I’ve had 2 different former bass players from Gwar tell me that Gwar wasn’t real.