Legal Niches

Pros and Cons: Press Junkets

By james_fudge

If there's one issue games journalists love to argue about besides the best scoring system for reviews, it's got to be press junkets. In case your not familiar with the practice, it's when a game publisher or developer pays for a journalist to go somewhere to see something. It could be as simple as the publisher paying for airfare, or it could be as extravagant as a trip to Hawaii - all expenses paid.

The Game Beat tackles the topic, using Capcom's Captivate event in April, where several prominent publications accepted 'all expenses paid' trips to play Capcom's newest games at a resort in Hawaii for three days.

Journalists really are divided on the issue. Some see it as an acceptable practice that has no influence on what these journalists will be writing about, while others believe that the practice creates an "appearance of impropriety' or 'undue influence' - real or imagined – and is not worth the hassle. Read More

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on July 30, 2010 (boomark / email).