Filed in the so stupid and bizarre yet true basket, Sony has blacklisted Gawker Media’s gaming blog Kotaku for the sin of daring to publish rumors about upcoming announcements in relation to Sony’s less than successful gaming platform, the PlayStation 3.
Brian Crecente writes at Kotaku that the blacklisting followed his attempts to gain comment from Sony on the rumors of a new service alleged to be called “PlayStation Home” that includes similar features to that already offered by Nintendo’s Wii console.
Sony responded to requests to comment on the rumors by asking, at first nicely, for Kotaku not to print the rumors, then followed up by less polite emails stating that publishing the rumors could harm Kotaku’s professional relationship with Sony.
Kotaku went ahead a published the rumors, as any self respecting news outlet should, after all gaming blogs are not official PR arms of gaming companies and editorial calls should stay with the publisher, and then received an extraordinary email from Dave Karraker, the senior director of corporate communications for Sony Computer Entertainment of America blacklisting all further contact between Sony and Kotaku.
You can read the full story at Kotaku here.
Question though: who the hell do Sony think they are? How arrogant are these people that they think they can bully independent publishers around with threats over access? Getting good press and bad press is part and parcel of PR, you aim to keep relationships strong and communications open so you can get your positive spin out at all times, but it never gives you the right nor power to dictate what can and can’t be written elsewhere. Sony is literally cutting its nose of to spite its face. Is it little wonder that the PS3 has bombed?
Tags: Sony, PlayStation3, Gawker Media, Kotaku
Originally posted on March 1, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
Arrogant? I ask you nicely not to publish an information and you publish it anyway. You know that you will harm my company but you go for it despite I asked you not to. Do you think I still want to cooperate with you? Get real.
They made up. I doubt they would have if it had been a smaller blog than Kotaku…
Adam, it’s not a journalist’s responsibility to protect your company. Journalist should report news, no matter if a company likes it or not. Are rumors news? Sometimes, not always. In this case? Depends on the source I’d say.
Thord, I fully agree with you. It’s journalist’s right to report whatever he/she wants but taking responsibility of the consequences is a part of it too.
Is it my right as a company owner to stop cooperation with other party? Yes it is. And I don’t even need a reason for that.
Kotaku looks like a little child who hit his uncle and now cries because uncle doesn’t want to take him on a trip.
Sony can do this because they are a big company. What they did here will not ruin anything for them.
When that is said – I agree with Thord.
Depicting Gawker Media as a poor little independent publisher is more than a bit disingenuous. Whatever kind of “professional arrangement” they had with Sony, Sony was within its rights to sever that relationship if Kotaku violated it. Imagining that Sony will now suffer a PR disaster grossly overinflates the impact of a few blogs on the public’s awareness.
And, Duncan: Publishing rumors i precisely the kind of thing a responsibile news outlet does not do.