I was browsing the relevant GamerGate feeds looking for news today, when I saw several stories to write up. One of them includes Tyler Malka, but I’m going to write a longer piece on his recent evolution later. I might even make a video to go along with this one, since he’s so special to the site. Plus, I really need to stop slacking on the videos, and this seems like a good excuse. ANYWAY, that’s not what I came to talk about. I came to talk about Kotaku and Patrick Klepek, the clown who used to work for Giant Bomb. As it turns out, his (admittedly good) report about the PC version of Arkham Knight may have had some ethical issues. Let’s take a look at what KotakuInAction is saying about this episode:

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(https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3bwori/ethics_kotaku_writer_patrick_klepek_fails_to/)

Patrick Klepek and Dave Lang, the CEO of Iron Galaxy, have been friends for years. Klepek’s article on the Arkham Knight PC port mentions that Iron Galaxy worked on the product, but doesn’t disclose their relationship.

This relationship was built while Klepek worked for Giant Bomb…

Now, I’m not saying that anything in Klepek’s article is wrong, or fabricated to protect his friend, but as always the issue is with a lack of disclosure.

TLDR: Klepek wrote an article involving a company that his friend is the CEO of without any disclosure of their relationship.

As you just read, Patrick Klepek and Dave Lang, the CEO of Iron Galaxy, have been friends for years. Klepek’s article on the Arkham Knight PC port mentions that Iron Galaxy worked on the product, but leaves out the part about Klepek and Lang being chummy.

It looks like Klepek hid the personal relationship he had with the Iron Galaxy CEO, Dave Lang. Not only that, if you read the story, it puts most of the heat on WB Games for this clusterfuck. I tend to believe the story, but without proper disclosure, you can understand why some may feel like Mr. Lang tried to cast blame on Warner Bros. in order to get his studio off the hook. This is exactly what GamerGate has been talking about for months.

I realize there were anonymous quotes in the article, and I’m not against that practice. But I always make sure the reader knows my relationships. Even if those quotes came from Lang, Klepek should have laid out all the ties he had to the central players. He didn’t, and now his journalistic ethics are coming into question.