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MCV Pacific Awards: Media Outlet of the Year

Leigh Harris

by Leigh Harris
Thursday, December 22nd 2011 at 1:38AM

MCV Pacific Awards: Media Outlet of the Year

Today we honour the most respected and trusted media outlet in Australia or New Zealand for videogame reporting.

There certainly is no shortage of places a rabid gamer can go when they want to learn the latest goings on behind the scenes in the games industry. Whether you want up-to-the-minute news, the most insightful long-form featuers or the most trusted reviews, you'll likely have several publications each with its own slant you can go to where you'll feel comfortable.

We're still in a nascent and troubled time regarding videogames journalism, battling to enter maturity and agree on a scoring system, construct and take thoughtful criticism in our stride and write about games in a way which is neither defensive nor placid.

We're constantly evolving. Our audiences are growing and changing all the time, so today we ask ourselves which of the Australian / New Zealand media outlets is the one we most look to for the best quality journalism and the most balanced representation of our shared industry.

 

 

 

The winner of the first annual MCV Pacific Media Outlet of the Year Award is:

 

 

 

 

Kotaku.

Kotaku has come along in leaps and bounds in the last few years, consistently providing thoughtful perspectives on current events and digging deep to make sure that each issue being dealt with is thoroughly understood, both by staff and readers alike.

We asked former guest-editor of Kotaku from 2010, freelance journalist extraordinaire and creator of the '5-inch floppy' Jeremy 'Junglist' Ray to say a few words about Kotaku:

 

Most valuable for Kotaku AU in the last year has been its ability to adopt a "cause" - a system devised under former publisher Seamus Byrne for both Kotaku (Ready) and Gizmodo (NBN/Conroy).

It allows the sites, as blogs, to discard the shackles of false objectivity that plague mainstream news. Half coverage, half campaign, Kotaku AU's Ready articles aren't held hostage to those who place themselves on the extreme of the issue. They don't have to include a sensationalist, conservative sound bite by default. The initiative just covers the issue with balance and vigilance, continually finding new angles even as others grow weary of slow progress, and for these reasons is one of the gaming community's leading voices on R18+.

The additions of Tracey Lien and (returning) Logan Booker to the team allow Kotaku AU to hit that little bit harder in their features, and take advantage of an opportunity for weekend coverage. Only a recent change, but already with noticeable effect.

That's not to take away from Editor Mark "Mr Consistency" Serrels, who hit the ground running at a Cheetah's pace since starting  and, somehow, hasn't slowed down since. Under his guidance, Kotaku AU coverage remains preferable to that of the Kotaku mothership - a fact that has very little to do with mere localisation.
Congratulations to Kotaku and to all our nominees for this year. We look forward to another year of criticism, speculation and analysis from our journalistic community's finest in 2012.
To register for the MCV Pacific News Digest, head to the registration page: http://www.mcvpacific.com/user/index/register/journey/register

 

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Tags: kotaku , Mark Serrels , Jeremy Ray , MCV Pacific Awards , Five-Inch Floppy

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