In the last couple of days, there has been a huge fight in the state of Michigan over Right to Work, a concept where someone cannot be forced to join a union. Opposing the unions has been conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity and the like. One of the counter protestors was Steven Crowder, an online journalist, contributor to Fox News, and a comedian. While he was having people film his confrontations and asking of questions of protestors, like Jay Leno's man on the street interviews, he was sucker punched by a couple of the union protestors.
Why bring up this story? It has nothing to do with video game news.
Ah, you see, it does. Steven Crowder's main form of communication to the world beyond Twitter is his funny internet videos via YouTube. Which means, he is being filmed at all times during these sorts of things. The video of Steven getting punched is one of the hottest videos at the moment on YouTube. The mainstream media will be forced to cover the story, and not avoid it. Union protestors cannot dispute the facts, though they are trying, because it is raw video footage, just like how we like to broadcast from conventions and do our interviews live and unedited.
The mainstream media owns most of the video game news outlets out there. Like the Crowder punching incident, many relevant stories are only being reported by small blogs, reporters, or local papers. It never makes those national sites. Instead, we get the thirty thousand stories on why Far Cry 3 is racist, or some other drivel the mainstream media wants to push. Despite light being shown on the practice, still some articles and reviews are pushed through what can only be described as a payolla system, similar to the infamous scandal that hit radio stations years ago where publishers were paying for more playtime and good reviews by radio station owners.
We at Lagspike are like the Steven Crowder's of the world. We're small, yes. But we can be powerful, and we will be, due to our independence. We want to bring you unscripted news and information from our persepctive, not filtered by ad revenue. Sure, we're going to have ads, but we are not and will not be schills.
Crowder is just the latest, political example of what I hope we can accomplish with LagSpike TV LLC.
To view the video of the incident I mention, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_F3oev06i0&list=SP85933DBA7E52B5B6&index=1