I started writing down my opinion on the Steven Totilo & Totalbiscuit video. Here's the first ~20 minutes reviewed.
Please note that all this is just my opinion on the video, I'm not trying to force you to agree with me.
First 17 minutes: Talking about how it's murky that whether
or not nathan greyson was friends with Zoe Quinn,
and how he believes that at that point, disclosure
was not necessary and how he trusts Greyson over
other people.
Opinion: At 16:03 Totilo says that he tells his reporters that if they think
that their viewers think that their relationship should be disclosed,
no matter how platonic, that they should disclose it. It's obvious
that by now Greyson should know that his viewers DO care, and yet
the article still has no disclosure on it to this day. To me, that
gives me all the information I need to know. I respect that Totilo
trusts Greyson, but I for one do not.
16:44-17:19: No comment
17:30-20:02: More defending Nathan Greyson and reporters in general,
above opinion still applies
20:03-20:42: Talking about how they added disclosure to the Patricia Hernandez
article, and how he "Had a talk" with Hernandez about his standards
and how he feels it's his responsibility to talk to his team
about the ethics and standards that they need to uphold. He also
mentions how if there's a failure there, that's his fault.
Opinion: I respect the fact that they tried to fix the mistake that Hernandez made,
but I fail to see why they didn't do the same with Greyson, as mentioned
in my previous opinion section. That to me shows that Totilo has and
continues to fail in the regard of upholding ethics and standards.
20:43-21:05: TotalBiscuit notes that on the Hernandez article, there is no disclosure
about Hernandez's relationship with Christine Love.
21:05-21:45: Totilo explains Hernandez's relationship with Anna
Opinion: This part is good. He comes out and fully explains their relationship
and explains why Hernandez did not initially disclose it. I'm a bit
curious as to whether his comment that Hernandez was not trained as
a journalist yet was true or not, but I'm going to give the benefit
of the doubt.
21:45-22:17: Totilo explains that in the first of 3 articles that Hernandez wrote on
Christine Love, she disclosed her relationship with her, and that that
shows that she understands the ethics required to do proper journalism.
Opinion: Totilo acts as if this makes up for the fact that in the subsequent articles,
that disclosure is not there. the fact that disclosure is on one article, and
not the others, tells me that they're really just too lazy to put disclosure on
the other articles. It would take all of a couple minutes and yet they still have
not to this day, after months of time being given to them to do so.
22:18-22:47: No comment
22:47-23:01: Totilo notes that in preperation for the call, he added disclosure on a couple
of the articles.
Opinion: Good for you! You got off your lazy ass! Now go fix the rest.
23:01-23:20: Totilo says he hopes there will never be another screwup with disclosure,
and says that he talked with his team "in great detail" about how it's okay
to give disclosure and there's no real reason not to, especially if they
think that people are going to want to know their relationship to their sources.
Opinion: Same as my first opinion.
23:21-23:42: No comment
