Fact-checking has to be one of the most important jobs a journalist must do, which is why it’s so sad to see what actually passes for “journalism” these days — especially of the variety that comes from Fox News. Of course, mistakes happen. In extreme cases, the facts might never be known, but to report facts that aren’t merely incorrect but are, in fact, bald-faced lies, is going to quite the extreme. In a particularly defamatory segment, Fox News couldn’t have produced a more libelous statement than what they had to report about the game “Mass Effect”.

“Mass Effect”, rated “M” for Mature by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, is not a game for kids. Released in North America on November 20, 2007 for the Xbox 360, this single-player, action-oriented role-playing game is set in the year 2183, some time after humans have begun establishing extra-terrestrial colonies. The player’s role in the game is to explore the vastness of space in relation to helping solve mysteries and resolve a conflict that has arisen between humans and certain alien races. Along the way, you meet a series of characters that will help and/or hinder you. You will also be presented with a number of opportunities to engage in sexual intercourse with some of these characters; however, it will require a certain amount of effort first — the player must actively build a relationship with these characters over the course of the game. In fact, you might even completely miss these opportunities altogether as they are hardly the focus of the game. Some of the characters are alien, some are human. The sex scenes are presented as a series of quick cuts of body-profiles in various positions. They last for a few moments — barely more than a minute. Nothing overtly gratuitous or pornographic; the sort of scene you might see in a PG-13 rated movie or on prime-time television. Of course, this is what you would learn simply by playing the game. To have an opinion on the game without actually playing it, all you need do is host a show on Fox News.

In the Fox News show, “Live Desk with Martha MacCallum”, MacCallum introduces “Mass Effect” as being marketed to kids and teenagers and featuring full digital nudity. She then states that, when asked for comment, Microsoft’s reply was that there are various parental controls in place to keep children away from the content of the game. MacCallum then introduces Cooper Lawrence, a self-help author, to weigh in with her expert opinion on the game. She backs up MacCallum’s claims and then launches into a diatribe about sexism in video games and how women are rarely treated as more than objects of desire where the object of the game is for men to sleep with as many women as they can. Following that, Geoff Keighly, from Spike TV, counters these statements — pointing them out as false and that the sexual content of the game is brief and hardly anything like what is being described. He also points out that the main character of the game can be male or female, although this doesn’t impress Lawrence too much, as she begins citing statistics about the ages sexes of video game players. The scene breaks down for a moment and then MacCallum ushers them away to talk to another panel of experts who only manage to parrot what was being said and adding more ignorant, derogatory remarks about the content of the game — even going so far as to refer to the game as “Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas”. The most notable moment of the entire broadcast was when Geoff Keighly asked Cooper Lawrence if she’d actually played the game. Lawrence responded, “No.” She had never even played the game.

Sometime after the broadcast, Electronic Arts, parent company of BioWare, the studio that created “Mass Effect”, requested that Fox issue a correction, retracting their statements about the game. In a letter addressed to Teri VanHorn, producer of “Live Desk with Martha MacCallum”, Jeff Brown, EA’s Vice President of Communications, highlights the serious errors made by Fox News and outlines a well-argued case against what had been presented in the segment, which he describes as “a new level of recklessness”. He compares the game to shows run on other Fox media outlets and other shows such as “Family Guy” and “The OC”. Finally, Brown ends the letter with the statement, “This isn’t a legal threat; it’s an appeal to your sense of fairness. We’re asking FNC to correct the record on Mass Effect.”

Describing the “Live Desk” segment as “reckless” is probably the most appropriate adjective there is in regards to what had been said. Publishing falsehoods and raising concern where it isn’t appropriate is more than libelous; it’s destructive to an often maligned industry which has come under attack and constant pressure from various groups in the past despite their best efforts to issue standards and conventions to help parents control the flow of certain types of content to their children. The ESRB, for example, was started with this very idea in mind — to help parents purchase age-appropriate games for their kids. The fact that the ESRB has been supported by a number of government officials and upheld as a standard to follow is completely ignored by an outlet such as Fox. In the “Live Desk” segment, MacCallum claims to use the ESRB ratings herself, yet the expert panel seems to feel that this isn’t enough. Very often — and very troubling for the industry — is that what these experts and groups crave most is government-imposed regulation of the video game industry. Nevermind the idea of keeping kids from buying violent video games, in many cases, these groups would rather see violent video games banned outright. As 2008 is an election year in the United States, it seems very likely that this is going to continue to be a hot issue and that we are likely to see more segments like this appearing on Fox News. However, there is a glimmer of hope.

It didn’t take long for gamers to react to the “Live Desk” segment. After barely giving Geoff Keighly a chance to explain and then completely ignoring Jeff Brown, Fox News and Cooper Lawrence both came under heavy attack by enraged gamers, who took it upon themselves to go to places like Amazon.com and give Lawrence’s book, “The Cult of Perfection”, extremely negative reviews, returning the favor she showed “Mass Effect” by not bothering to review the material before critiquing it. As a result of the controversy that erupted over the segment and the outcry it received from the gaming community, Lawrence admitted her mistakes in an interview with The New York Times. Recognizing that she’d been wrong about the game after watching someone play it for two and a half hours, she realized that the game was not pornographic. Fox News, however, has yet to admit any wrongdoing in the “Live Desk” segment.

Following the story’s evolution — the many twists and turns it took as it ran its course — it’s hard to come away from this without feeling bitter about the state of public opinion on the video game industry and the role large media corporations seem to play in forming that opinion. In many cases — not just this one, and not just Fox News — we see the story, the opinion, and the results formed before it even fully plays out. But does this mean that ethical journalism is truly dead? Perhaps not, but Fox News hardly comes across as a bastion of ethical journalism after looking over the facts in this case.