With today's ability to get any information at a lightning fast speed you would think that it would help journalism and the spreading of news, opinions, and information in general. Yet, I find it increasingly difficult to find quality work though the internet, newspapers, magazines, news channels, and other forums that spread information. Even with topics as simple as video games, Anime, and hockey - it feels that journalists, reviewers, and fans have yet to learn how to check their work for quality control.When I first became a gamer back in the PlayStation era, my house was not connected to the internet, so my options for gaming news were very slim. My only real source at the time was the Official PlayStation Magazine and I relied on it heavily to help me pick the very few games I picked up during my early gaming years. One thing I loved about OPM was the background information you got on all the contributors - you knew who liked RPGs, who predominately played platformers, and who played shooters. Having that information helped to understand where some of the opinions in the reviews and previews came from and made it easy to add weight to the flaws and pluses of a certain game. Even with its many contributors, OPM was always internally consistent, with one person's 5 star rating basically on the same as another person's 5 star rating. Looking at the reincarnation of OPM, I can't help but miss the good ole' days when I actually knew who wrote a certain piece or when two games that shouldn't be on the same level received different scores. Unfortunately, PtoM is nothing like it's predecessor with its inconsistent ratings to the revolving door of contributors and editors coming and leaving. Heck, I can't even name who the editor-in-chief is right now because there have been so many yet I can name everyone from the last year of OPM.
Newtype is the premier magazine to get Anime and Manga news in Japan and its U.S. counterpart was no less superb. Then Newtype U.S.A. decided to break from the traditional and began adding in western movies, books, music, and other pop-culture. Cutting back by half on the information that I wanted and adding in a bunch that I didn't forced me to look elsewhere for my J-News. I quickly turned to Otaku USA and its 6 magazines a year subscription. Like PtoM, you'd think that because I pay for the service, their quality control should be pretty good - wrong. While PtoM's problems can generally be overlooked, Otaku USA is almost worthless as a source of information. I understand that with only 6 magazines a year, some of the information will be old but doing full blown cover pieces on an Anime that wasn't even released in this century? If they want to talk about some of the older works, they should put it in a special column dedicated to the Anime of the past, not take up precious space to tell me things I already know about Anime I already own. While PtoM seems to be filled with an overabundance of opinion in their reviews, Otaku USA is the opposite. Mostly a summary of the plot, the reviewers don't even give you basic information like age rating, number of discs, release date, and publisher - opinion and constructive praise and criticism are barely existent as well. Once my subscription is over, it's goodbye Otaku USA.
If the "professionals" can't give you the information, why not go to those dedicated fans that know all the ins and outs. NHL's official website links a lot of articles from various sources including Bleacher Report and even has their work listed as feature articles. So, of course I popped over there to check out the latest news and opinions straight from the fans. While I understand not everything a fan writes will be of the utmost quality, I was at least expecting the featured columnists and their articles to be held to a higher standard than the other writers on the site. I quickly found out that this was not true after reading several articles and opinion pieces. One contributor in general had me scratching my head as to how he formed his opinions. He was especially harsh on Nabokov and he used his own professional hockey experience to add to his thoughts. After reading many other fans disagreeing with the opinion presented, I later found out that this featured columnist was only 18 and his professional hockey experience was from his 2 months of college hockey (not even NCAA mind you). I'm not one for age discrimination, heck a great comic series called Axe Cop is written by a 5 year old, but I was shocked to see someone make such harsh criticisms of an elite NHL player just by comparing his own experiences in college. Needless to say, I have been very disappointed with the overall selection that Bleacher Report makes for their featured columns.
Personal blogs, letters to the editor, and comments are all ways for us to express ourselves fully and freely. Yet when it comes to professional and semi-professional informational sites, I expect their to be a little more quality control presented in the work posted. From reviews constructed with merited praise and criticism to opinion articles that are based on facts and not fiction - with the flood of information that is at are fingertips, just make sure that you know who it's coming from because you are the only one who can maintain your own quality control.
