Its scary to imagine ones job depending on the opinions of internet crazies.

That is really boring news about the cpu though.

I'm writing this in all-caps due to emphasis and anger:

IT IS NOT THE JOB OF NEWS SITES TO WITHHOLD INFORMATION AT THE BEHEST OF THOSE THEY REPORT UPON.

What's that you say? Nintendo would take you off their spoon-feeding press release list if you broke early? Yeah, like anyone's gonna miss reports of them having their chips months ago.

Well, not entirely sure I agree, John. Sometimes information is advanced to reporters under embargo, so that they can write up a proper story which will debut at the same time as an official press release. I don't really see this as a tragic restriction of freedom.

However, I do think that taunting users about it is kinda lame, especially when the eventual story is not that hot.

I'm with Simon. This isn't an issue of with holding information, so much as it is delaying the release of it. This is the entertainment press, after all, not high politics.

If it was a matter of Nintendo secretly doing things to hurt gamers, that's another matter altogether. Any good journalist who knew this sort of thing should report it. But simply delaying a story so it can be timed with a press release? Normal practice in the entertainment media. Gaming journalists should be held to the standard of Variety, not the New York Times.

This whole situation is pretty lame. Although I would not have used the word "major" in the tease, it was fairly significant news. It's a shame that Joystiq forgets what makes transition years so much fun: hype, anticipation, and rumors. If every console launch was Saturn-esque this industry wouldn't be nearly as large or high profile as it is today.

While I think that Joystiq probably over reacted (they should have suspended him for a month), reading this guys ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game’ post on Destructoid just makes me think good riddance to bad trash and that Joystiq should have done this a long time ago.

The real problem here is that there doesn't seem to be a proper approval mechanic in place at Joystiq (or other blogs). At professional sites, there will be a desk or an editor that checks incoming articles before they're published, to weed out stuff like this.

If articles don't have to be approved before they're published, there's no way to take the site seriously as a news source. Same goes for other blogs.

I am offering you this exclusive information under EMBARKO!

I have entered into an exclusive deal with ROBERT SUMMA.

COME BACK AFTER 11:40am TO HEAR THE NARDSHOCKING NEWS!

OK it is after 11:40am eeeastern time... Here is your news... On September 10th, 2006, Robert Summa and I entered into a landmark deal to have fun together. The complete contract is reprinted without permission, below:

Icupnimpn2 says:

September 10th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
TAHNK U SUMMA LETS HAVE US FUN 2@GETHER

Robert Summa says:

September 10th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
deal.

I have entered into an exclusive embarko deal with ROBERT SUMMA! Please DIGG THISS

"At professional sites, there will be a desk or an editor that checks incoming articles before they're published, to weed out stuff like this."

It is certainly true at proper filtering process would prevent falsehoods from creeping in, but this post was up for hours and presumably the Joystiq Editor in Chief knew about it. If they had a problem, they certainly could have stepped in earlier. (And is becoming apparent that Summa and Joystiq parted ways over more than this single post.)

Your larger point about accountability holds though. Joystiq *is* a professional site. Lots of traffic, they pay their contributors...they have as much an obligation not to deceive as Gamespot does. They can't simply throw their hands up and say "But we're a blog!". I blog and am very careful about ethical and professional obligations. Editing and self-editing aren't a matter of who does it, but that it is done at all.

Joystiq is also a site that depends on rumors - all Newsblogs do. And so long as rumors are clearly identified as such, this isn't an issue. The trick is trying make sure readers read the rumors on your site and not on one of the dozen other sites with the same rumor.