OnGamers apologises to Brokenshard for using a quote of his without permission in NACL article.
Around the middle of last month onGamers reported on a story regarding NACL being late with its payments to teams that had won prize money in its competitions. While the story itself was and remains accurate, to the best of our knowledge and investigation, the aftermath of the release of the story resulted in a claim from one of the players quoted that he had not given permission for his words to be used in the piece. After a thorough internal investigation, it has been confirmed that this player, Ram 'Brokenshard' Djemal, was correct in his claim of misconduct on behalf of the journalist who produced the piece.
The writer of the piece, William Turton, a contributing writer for onGamers, was dishonest in using the quote, having been categorically told he was not given permission by the player to publish it. He has subsequently been punished, including a loss of half a month's salary, and a new policy has been implemented regarding the editorial standards of pieces published at onGamers.
An official statement from oGamers regarding the situation:
The controversy swirling around our piece yesterday, discussing the late payments from NACL to participants in Season 1, has turned around on us and revealed some internal issues with our publishing and editorial process.
William Turton has written several pieces for us before, and being a relatively small and trusting organization, we do not normally have a full review of sources/logs before publishing a piece. We review the language and quotes and have a senior editor look at all “scoops” or controversial issues before they are published, but we had been operating assuming that our journalists were being honest with us.
In yesterday’s piece, Mr. Turton quoted Brokenshard when Brokenshard had explicitly asked not to. The conversation was not on the record and the information gleaned there should never have been printed. Mr. Turton has released the skype log showing that Brokenshard was asking to not be quoted or even part of the article, and has apologized for using a quote when he should not have.
We are moving to address this internally. Effective immediately all “scoops” or “investigative” pieces will have the actual source conversations/quotes reviewed by a senior editor to ensure that we are complying both with our sources' intentions and with all editorial standards. In addition, onGamers would like to apologize to Brokenshard for revealing a private off-the-record conversation without his permission.
As to Mr. Turton, we are going to give him another chance. This industry, eSports, is very young. The scene is young, the games are young, the players are young, the owners are young and in this instance the journalist is young. People make mistakes. We do not consider this to be part of a larger pattern of deception, either towards the public or towards us, and we have faith that Mr. Turton will not make this mistake again.
We stand by the heart of the article, and aside from quoting Brokenshard when we should not have, we supplied quotes from the parties involved shedding light on the story at hand. We reached out for comment from NACL as part of the investigation and believed that we were reporting the situation in the exact words of the people involved. The coincident resolution of the payment issue gives credence to the concerns raised within the article by the players/managers who had been working with NACL.
We value the trust and confidence of the community and our sources. We are disappointed that this breach may have cost us some of the faith and goodwill the community has had. We will strive to continue to earn your trust by bringing better researched stories forward and helping to inform the community of what is happening.
Wiliam Turton's statement
eSports community,
I want to apologize for a major error I made in one of my recent articles. Two individuals explicitly asked me to refrain from using their quote in the story, but I still included their quote against their wishes. I’m extremely disappointed in myself and I failed as a journalist. I want to take full responsibility for this grave error and make a sincere promise that this will never happen again. I also want to apologize to my colleagues at onGamers, as my careless error tarnished the credibility of the product they have worked so hard on. Most importantly, I have sent my apologies to the individuals whose trust I betrayed.
This should have never happened, and it goes against everything I stand for as a journalist. I am deeply sorry to the entire eSports community as my mistake may reflect poorly on the community as a whole. I wholeheartedly promise that I will never make this mistake again.
