When the Latest News Isn't

Turns out that the local PBS affiliate was only showing the new Video Game Revolution special on the high-definition digital cable channel. Despite the literally couple of dollars that the ads to the right have garnered, I can not currently afford a high-definition TV, so I could not watch the documentary last night



As I try to procure a copy of the program another way, enjoy this interview I've been sitting on for a while:

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A few weeks ago, the story broke that Nintendo had been granted a patent for an add-on device with "communication and storage capability via a modem and hard disk drive."



Some in the videogame press community (and some in the non-videogame press) quickly filed speculative reports on the device as an XBox Live-style GameCube peripheral. One source featured the highly misleading headline, "Nintendo Patents XBox Live". Another source enigmatically guessed that the device might function as a Personal Video Recorder. It was race time at the rumor track.



To my knowledge, Gamespot's Tor Thorsen was the first author on this story to track down the actual patent, rather than relying on the summary provided on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Site. What he found revealed the newly-approved patent as a 1999 filing for the now-defunct Nintendo 64 Disk Drive.



I talked with Thorsen via e-mail about the fact-checking that went into his story and how videogame press as a whole handled the situation.



The Video Game Ombudsman: How were you first tipped off about this story?



Tor Thorsen: If told you, then I'd have to kill you. (just kidding -- see below)



VGO: When you get a tip like this, what sort of fact checking does it go through? Does this process apply to all articles, or only some? Take me through the process.



TT: Initially we were tipped off about the patent. I looked it up at the US Patent & Trademark office (USPTO) and found out it was legit. I looked at the description, and checked the "granted" date. I also sent off e-mails to Nintendo's reps (who can be very slow about getting back). Then I wrote an initial draft of the story, which heavily played up how strange it was that the week before, NOA reps were talking up game-only devices and blasting the PSX. According to that patent, they were making something that sounded a lot like a cross between the PSX (TV integration) and Xbox Live (online & game-content downloading capabilities). That version got sent to copy edit while I did a second round of fact-checking.



VGO: Was there anything about the story that made it seem particularly suspicious to you when you first heard about it?



TT: The whole situation seemed bizarre--either Nintendo's whole PR effort for the last year was BS, or they had done a "Crazy Ivan" about-face. It just seemed off. My spider sense was tingling, but there was the official gov't USPTO listing right in front of my face. Then I got hold of the scan, and I realized it was the 64DD.



VGO: What part of the patent scan first indicated to you that the patent was for the 64DD and not a new system or peripheral?



The diagram (!) and the other dates -- neither of which was including in the listing on the USPTO Web site.



VGO: Are you surprised that articles that preceded yours (and some since) did not notice the connection to the 64DD? Do you think these sources actually read through the entire patent?



TT: Online game news is a two-headed beast. You want to be first to put it up, but you also need to get the facts right. I think a lot of sites let the former override the latter. I come from a more traditional journalism background, so I've had fact-checking drilled into my head since I worked at my college paper.



That said, the online USPTO listing did not have the diagram or the initial date on it. The one thing that sent my alarm bells ringing was the original date on the page which said "Filed: April 4, 2003." That meant that either Nintendo's PR people had been putting on a very false front by pooh-poohing "convergence" (or whatever the marketing droids are calling it this week) for over a year, or something was amiss.



Here's the whole content from the USPTO site:



[editted out for space. See the online USPTO listing]



Reading that--an official document from the US gov't--you can see how it would be really easy to think it was a brand-new patent.



VGO: If you had not figured out the true nature of the patent, how long do you think it would have continued to be reported incorrectly? How far do you think the speculation would have gone?



Not long. Shortly after my story went up, Nintendo called to explain it to me. They called other people too, but, ironically, only one of our competitors bothered correcting it immediately. The others let it run until the next day, and many smaller-level sites were parroting it as fact days later. Nintendo was smart to do damage control, though -- a lot of publishers don't understand that rumors will persist only for as long as they let them and stay silent, fueling speculation.



VGO: What do you recomend to other videogame news writers to avoid oversights like the one your article corrected?



Something like 75 to 80 percent of news stories are based on press releases, so no fact checking is really necessary (though, due to the vague wording, clarifications often are). It's easy to get sloppy when you're getting spoonfed stuff all the time and you've got about a half-hour to write the thing, proof it, code it, publish it, and make it not sound like crap.



That said, a lot of people have been in this game a lot longer than me, so I wouldn't presume to tell them how to do their jobs. My advice to myself is simple: check your facts and trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, that's probably because it is.