EGM goes WAY over the line!

[Casper]

In one of the more bizarre and tasteless uses of a photo in many years by a gaming magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, which is published by Ziff-Davis Media, hits a new low. For their coverage of Sony's SOCOM II for the PlayStation 2. EGM used the photograph shown in this thread at a forum site called "The Guns Network" to show a soldier holding a box for the game. The original photograph as described by members of "The Guns Network" forum was actually Russian soldiers holding pictures of their comrades who have died in the Russian-Chechen conflict to honor them in a memorial service. To make matters worse for Ziff-Davis Media, they sent the owners of "The Guns Network" forums a letter informing of them essentially of their intent to sue for defamation if the offending link is not removed.

Credit goes to the forums at Gaming Age for the links.

This is terrible - and shouldn't have even got past any kind of editor.....

[bretman1234]

What a disgrace! Way to show respect EGM You guys got real class there.

[armyof_one/ltd]

MAN! I never thought people would even think of doing that.

And how did they dare to sue the guys trying to tell the truth!

BTW: Isn´t it Computer Gaming Monthly?

[Ford Mustang]

OMFG! That is totally disgusting. I have this issue. I can't believe they'd stoop that low. Some heads should be rolling for this. And it's even more outrageous that they're going to SUE the people telling the truth! WTF is that bull? I'm going to send them an email with a few of my thoughts in it. It won't do anything, but it will make me feel better. I encourage everyone here to do so.

[Cryogenic Pyro]

That's beyond idiotic. The disgrace of this is beyond the line of being able to say sorry. I will never buy another EGM.

A sorry could have been in order before they sent the e-mail about suing The Guns Network.

What of bunch of asstards.

[CC-CRC]

What ******* gets that idea.. lets paste SOCOM II into pictures of crying russians dead friends that died in the real world.

It looks like a bad photoshop job to me are you guys ure this is in the accual issue.

[Ford Mustang]

Originally posted by CC-CRC
It looks like a bad photoshop job to me are you guys ure this is in the accual issue.

I do believe that I just said "I have this issue."

Regardless, this is just moronic, immoral, and wrong. EGM should be paraded around like clowns for being so damn stupid.

[CarGuy]

BOYCOTT

[AlphaCigara]

Originally posted by armyof_one/ltd

BTW: Isn´t it Computer Gaming Monthly?

naw, i think that was a typo on the links behalf, cause Socom2 is a ps2 game.

anyways, i've been a loyal subscriber to EGM for over a year now, and while i still think its a quality magazine, this was a bit F'N STUPID of them. now, if i didn't know this photo actually meant something (with the whole "honoring their dead brothers" deal) i wouldn't be pissed at EGM, but yea that was way over the line.

[Peepers]

Is it possible that they didn't know the context of the image when they selected it? It may have been an innocent mistake.

[Casper]

Originally posted by Peepers
Is it possible that they didn't know the context of the image when they selected it? It may have been an innocent mistake.

But whomever photoshopped it had rights of the pic that they sold them. Whether or not you get someone to edit a pic for you, aren't you buying the rights from them? So shouldn't you be wondering where that pic came from?

[blonks]

its terrible...but what can ya do? petetion to take it out? pffft!

[Discretion]

That's horrible. I can't believe EGM sunk so low...

[Peepers]

Originally posted by Casper-XBA


But whomever photoshopped it had rights of the pic that they sold them. Whether or not you get someone to edit a pic for you, aren't you buying the rights from them? So shouldn't you be wondering where that pic came from?

I don't about purchasing the rights and stuff, but I can at least conceive of a scenario in which the EGM staff was ignorant of the photo's context, or ignorant of the event's significance.

[Casper]

Originally posted by Peepers



I don't about purchasing the rights and stuff, but I can at least conceive of a scenario in which the EGM staff was ignorant of the photo's context, or ignorant of the event's significance.

I don't see that happening, honestly. With a site that is a monthly mag, and not a website that can just edit their html - I'd say that they knew where this came from, and that either they'll put in a retraction for the next issue. But if you're putting something like this in your periodical, you dam well better know where your sources are coming from.

[Peepers]

Originally posted by Casper-XBA


I don't see that happening, honestly. With a site that is a monthly mag, and not a website that can just edit their html - I'd say that they knew where this came from, and that either they'll put in a retraction for the next issue. But if you're putting something like this in your periodical, you dam well better know where your sources are coming from.

Yes, they should have an apology in the next issue. But in addition to the (remote) possibilty that they may have been ignorant of the photo's origin/context, it's also possible that they (innocently but erroneously) reasoned that since they're not a Russian magazine it wouldn't matter.

[Brimstone D.]

IMO this was an honest mistake...What some of you people don't know is that 100% of magazines buy their photos from different sources, and most of the time its from 'Stock' photos, were their are many High-Quality Pictures for sale in one package and they don't contain the stories behind them, so all in all it's the supplier's fault for not mentioning the history or story behind that picture.

[themoosearmy]

It is horrible, I don't tend to think that EGM simply thought noone would notice and just put it in there.

Maybe they really didn't know and one of the art department guys hid his source from the editor because it was such a great find or something.

[ScorpionX]

http://www.gunsnet.net/forums/showth...hreadid=157997

Don't jump to conclusions!

From: "Hsu, Dan" <Dan_Hsu@ziffdavis.com> Save Address | Headers
To: "<Hsu>, Dan" <Dan_Hsu@ziffdavis.com>
CC:
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 15:57:03 -0800
Subject: Apology from Electronic Gaming Monthly
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I wanted to write you to tell you that Electronic Gaming Monthly really screwed up with the picture of the soliders in our February issue. We're apologizing to everyone we can, and we've put up a public apology at the top of the front page of our website:

http://www.egmmag.com/

(apology here: http://www.egmmag.com/article2/0,4364,1434661,00.asp )

We're also making a donation to the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization as a part of our apology.

We didn't mean to offend anyone. Honestly, it was nothing more than pure ignorance and stupidity on our part: We didn't realize what the original context of the image was, even though it's pretty clear in hindsight. I apologize. I screwed up and promise you it will never happen again.

Also, a legal letter was sent out by our legal department asking for some people to take down this image that was scanned out of EGM and posted online. This is absolutely *not* us trying to sweep this under the rug. That is an automated response to any scans of our copyrighted material (we licensed that picture from an imaging service). We didn't realize the image is being used for protest, which is fine by us since we screwed up. We honestly did not mean to further compound the problems and anger felt by those offended by our mistakes. We apologize for that legal letter as well. Please direct any complaints toward me, and please don't take it out on the original sender--she has nothing to do with this whole mess that was created by my editorial department. She had even less of an idea of the context of the original image than we did....

Sincerest apologies,

-Dan "Shoe" Hsu
Editor in Chief, Electronic Gaming Monthly

[Peepers]

Originally posted by Brimstone D.
IMO this was an honest mistake...What some of you people don't know is that 100% of magazines buy their photos from different sources, and most of the time its from 'Stock' photos, were their are many High-Quality Pictures for sale in one package and they don't contain the stories behind them, so all in all it's the supplier's fault for not mentioning the history or story behind that picture.

I never even considered this possibility. It seems very possible and highly exculpatory.


EDIT: I like the way they handled the apology--very admirable.