Just because I cover a story doesn't mean it's over. Believe it or not, news continues to develop after my weekly column goes to print. Shocking, I know.

Movers and Shakers
The exodus of game writers continues as 1UP reports that Editorial Director John Davison is leaving the troubled Ziff Davis to start a new family-oriented game site. The loss comes right after the departure of 1UP news director Luke Smith and amid financial problems for Ziff Davis as a whole. If Ziff couldn't manage to sell the Game Group with a talent like Davison around, I don't want to think about how much harder it will be with him gone.

Speaking of the exodus, a few high-profile game journos have finally come out of hiding as part of GameTap's surprisingly meaty new editorial section: "Read". Curt Feldman (formerly of GameSpot) and Doug Perry (formerly IGN) and Dana Jongewaard (formerly of OPM) are just some of the major bylines showing up on the site's selection of news, reviews, previews and features. When combined with the original video content on the service, GameTap is turning into an editorial outlet to watch out for.

Speaking of new outlets to watch out for, a bunch of talented PC game journos, including Jim Rossignol and Kieron Gillen, have struck out together to start Rock Paper Shotgun. The writing is so sharp and incisive that it's almost enough to get me to care about PC gaming. Almost!

Speaking of sharp writing, it hasn't been enough to help Edge, which fell by about 5,000 subscribers in Britain's latest ABC circulation report. The report shows the entire British game magazine market looking a little sluggish in the report, much to the chagrin of those who would defend dead tree media.

The Game Developer Down the Hall
On his Multiplayer blog, Stephen Totilo touches on the particular challenges and conflicts that come up writing for MTV, a media outlet that has suddenly also become a major game developer. He explains: "Rock Band keeps popping up around here. The full MTV News team was given a demo of the game ('off the record,' we were told, once I started asking questions). The even bigger MTV team was given a demo as well. And me? I just keep running into the thing."

Totilo always mentions the MTV connection when covering Rock Band and competitor Guitar Hero, which is all that's really necessary to handle the potential conflict. As long as readers know about any questionable relationships, they can decide for themselves whether or not the coverage is fair. Apparently this is too high a bar for some outlets, though – IGN rarely mentions its involvement in in-game advertising when writing stories on the subject, and IGN-owned GameSpy doesn't mention its own involvement in online gaming when talking about other online services. It's not a huge deal – I doubt either outlet's coverage is really influenced by their corporate overlords – but a single line pointing out these relationships would be a nice service for alert readers.

Insider Review Trading
Speaking of conflicts and IGN, the folks over at Video Game Media Watch (my former stomping grounds) have a juicy story alleging quid pro quo trading of an exclusive review for a high score. Anecdotal stories like these are widespread in the industry (my Media Coverage predecessor did a good job summing up the issues surrounding them) but are unfortunately hard to nail down. Most whistleblowers in these cases remain anonymous for fear of reprisal and there's almost never any concrete, written proof of these agreements between PR and editorial. Still, even without proof, the allegations alone are enough to erode confidence in the game journalism industry in many reader's eyes.

Revisiting Sponsorship
My recent look at EA's somewhat questionable E3 sponsorship of GamerTag Radio got the attention of the people behind the podcast. We had a rather civil conversation about the issues surrounding the sponsorship and the interview has been now been posted on GamerTag Radio. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for not contacting the folks at GTR to get their side of the story before going to press, and appreciate the respectful, professional way they handled their complaint.

The Dark Side of Freelancing
After playing up the freelancer's life in a previous column, I felt it was only fair to give equal time to the some of the problems with the unconventional career choice. To that end, I point out this article which points out some of the less salient, less well-known aspects of a freelancer's life. The point about always being able to go back to the office is an important one – you can always retreat to your nice, safe, carpet-walled cubicle if you want to.

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Got something you'd like to see on Media Coverage? Send it to kyle.orland@gmail.com.

Kyle Orland is a full time video game freelancer based out of Laurel, MD. He writes for a variety of outlets as detailed on his workblog. He's the co-author of The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. He writes about games he's played recently on his playlog Games for Lunch. He doesn't know where this is going but he's got a feeling he'll do the driving from now on.

Media Coverage is an opinion column. The opinions expressed in this column are solely the opinions of the columnist and are not necessarily the opinions of GameDaily.com.