Fox News’ Mass Effect Jackassery: The Saga (Probably) Concludes
A little while ago, Fox News held a scathing discussion of Mass Effect, condemning the Xbox 360 RPG for containing full frontal nudity and hardcore sexual content. The fact that the game contained neither of these things did not seem to worry them. Here’s a simple timeline of what happened next:
1) Gamers freaked out
2) EA, the publisher of Mass Effect, demanded a correction
3) Fox News invited EA on to argue their point about the game
4) EA refused, saying there was no “point” other than Fox News had made shit up about their game
And now, since Fox News seems to be unconcerned with their lack of releasing facts, the closest anyone will get to an apology or correction is this; self-help author Cooper Lawrence, one of the folks who trashed Mass Effect on Fox, was interviewed by the New York Times and apologized, saying she’d now seen the “sex scene” in question and that it was “kind of a joke.” So what have we learned?
1) Fox News is not at all worried about reporting lies
2) The New York Times is Fox News’ effective correction box
3) If you lie about a video game, gamers will use Amazon Reader Reviews to fuck your book up
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.