re: the ellie story--a lot of people have been yelling at me about it for the past 48 hours, so I want to clarify some things
people have decided that other reporters and I didn't do our due diligence initially, and while I can't speak for other reporters, I'm guessing they, like me, followed pretty standard protocol for these things: reach out to involved parties, wait for responses, and then write
sometimes nobody replies. that happened here, and it sucks! if you're on deadline, it means you've got to work off what's available. is it ideal? no. a lot of things about online reporting--as well as social media, esports, and the internet, all of which played into this--aren't
some folks have decided I was the ringleader behind people believing ellie, which is weird, bc I was reporting on something the overwatch esports community--not to mention prominent youtubers, streamers, etc outside it--already felt was a big moment, were commenting on, etc
on top of that, the team in question, second wind, had issued multiple statements about ellie, meaning that there was publicly available comment from a firsthand source. that--in addition to ellie's departure, aka something that *happened*--made it a story
if those things weren't out there, I wouldn't have written anything, bc it would've just been a bunch of he-said she-said
some people are acting like, in hindsight, it was INCREDIBLY obvious that ellie was a fake. that's some whiplash-inducing historical revision, bc a few days ago, it most certainly wasn't. people were making charlie-day-ass conspiracy charts to try and make sense of it, ffs
it wasn't until punisher seemingly confessed to aspen (something that's still uncertain, given that punisher himself has yet to say anything) that people started coming forward
and even then, things are still rooted in screenshots and other hard-to-verify evidence, which is why I've yet to write an article that says "yes, punisher definitely did it, and here's how"
the most solid, verifiable stuff I had at the time of my first article suggested ellie was real. in addition, that seemed to be the going assumption of prominent people in the overwatch esports community, including ellie's own team
lastly--and this was a judgement call I made consciously at the time--I chose to believe a person who claimed to be a woman, bc anything else would've fed into the preexisting atmosphere of rampant skepticism (verging on paranoia) surrounding women in competitive gaming scenes
you can say that, given the outcome of things, I played a role in ultimately reinforcing people's erroneous assumptions about women, but the alternative would've been to reinforce those assumptions in a diff way--and to implicitly be *always* operating under those assumptions
that seems pretty awful to me, so I'm not gonna do that! and this isn't me trying to sound all self-aggrandizing or whatever; I'm just outlining my thought process in hopes of helping people understand how this all unfolded
second wind cited similar rationale underlying their decision not to be more skeptical of ellie, and on that front, I think they did the right thing. beyond that, I do think they fucked up massively in their rush to fill out their roster, but I digress
so I wrote a story. then credible info surfaced suggesting ellie was an impostor. I updated my story and sought more info from sources who could clarify, rather than add gossip to what had, by that point, become an incredibly tangled ball of the stuff. that's how reporting works
journalists are people, and reporting is a process. it's by no means perfect or infallible. when a story twists like this, you just keep reporting and trying to learn more, because that's your job
the idea that publications are now "backtracking" is, as always, laughable. the story advanced. so of course, that means we write about the new developments, too
also, re: people not talking to me/other members of the press and the ripple effects of that, here's a good thread:
