Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and his name is ABC News.

I know that many of you have viewed the despicable ABC News Nightline “report” on Gamergate and from the number of tweets I’ve seen about this program over the last couple of weeks, were absolutely aghast the way Gamergate was presented.

Of course, they interviewed the Internet’s greatest con artist, Anita Sarkeesian. They made the entire story about the misogyny of gamers and about poor, victimized Anita. Or so they thought.

I’m not sure they were ready for the backlash they started receiving. In fact, based on some tweets I’ve seen, ABC News were actually deleting comments criticizing their report. Of course. It made perfect sense to me that they would. As a “news” organization, it looks bad when your viewers pan your stories as either false or misrepresentative.

Of course, ABC News, as of this writing, has failed to respond to any of the critiques. I am completely amenable to them deleting comments that are offensive, but I know there were comments, at least at one point, that were reasoned as well as angry, that made points that appears ABC News did not want to enjoin. U.S. women are nothing more than victims in society. We in the U.S. have somehow become inured to these “stories”. I know plenty of women that are outraged by this depiction.

What ABC News doesn’t realize though is that, by presenting this story, they reenergized Gamergate. Now it’s no longer about ethics in gamer journalism, but the ethics of those in the Mainstream Media. Of course, I’m not surprised. Its been a long time since Ive seen “journalists” be the Fourth Estate: guarding the public against the excesses of government and societal excesses. Instead, they have taken on the very persona of those that they should be guarding the public against.

The issue with those that support Gamergate? There is no single voice to speak. Gamergate is not a movement where there are leaders, those that pretend to speak for everyone. The movement is an amalgam of people from all walks of life sans race and gender; Irrespective of economics and social status. Gamers are just that: gamers.

In defense of the Mainstream Media, who is there to speak with on the “other side”? Well, just a little searching, (how about YouTube?) that would probably have provided a plethora of dissenting views. That’s not how Mainstream journalism works today. The Mainstream Media decides to cover a “story”, in editorial conferences, decide how they want to present the “story”, then the marketing people come in and make the final judgement: Which story will provide the most eyes(revenue)?

Is there a conspiracy to prevent women from developing games? Are there men in the gaming community muting the voices of women and minorities? If so, point them out.

To date, I’ve seen no evidence.

Gaming isn’t really a “hobby”, it’s an distraction from everyday life that people of all races, genders, ethnicities enjoy either singularly or, more important, with their family.

Those that would mistake gaming, or better yet, gamers, as anti-woman forget, or actually are unaware that there are many women that daily play games whether those games are PC based, console, or mobile. What difference does it make? Well none.

Gaming is just that and is platform independent. When someone decides, without evidence, that gamers are misogynists, racists, whatever, they are the ones that are clueless as to the gaming community. In fact, aren’ they the ones that, accusing others, are in fact those same?

Is there anything that those supporting Gamergate can do to repair the reputation that has been egregiously defamed by either individuals or the media? I don’t know. What I do know however is allowing those that would attempt to tarnish an entire community must be called to account.

Dear Gamergate: You’re still relevant.