And CNN? For someone who parades themselves around as the most trusted name in news, they haven't done a thing to earn the trust of those who game. You don't bring on your technology expert to talk about Grand Theft Auto IV, only to have them make statements about the game that could have been proven wrong with five minutes on Google. By the way, if anyone's found all the characters from Grand Theft Auto III in that game or where I get the chainsaw at in Liberty City, please tell me. I don't have a clue, but CNN's "technology expert" told me both were in there, so it must be true!

The solution for the mainstream media is simple: bring on people who are actually experts in what you're talking about and do your homework. No, not everyone can be like the late Tim Russert and be able to dig through every little last bit of a story, but that doesn't give you the right to get things blatantly wrong and then to project those wrongs as truths. On top of that, for people who say they are fair and balanced, your coverage is about as unfair and unbalanced in regards to gaming as I've ever seen. If you can't be bothered to find someone from within your own ranks who can bring some light to the issue, or if you don't want to go out into the industry and bring in the people involved in the story - developers, publishers, gaming industry experts, etc. - then do us all a favor and don't bother covering these stories. You only make yourselves look like fools and hypocrites.

As for the rest of us, we can act, too. If you see reporting like the stuff I've described, write to these networks. Do it repeatedly if you need to, and en masse. Let them know your opinions on the issue but please do so calmly and with a collected mind, as the last thing we need is them posting these letters and e-mails on the news and saying gamers are loonies. They can ignore five or 50 e-mails. They can't ignore 5,000 or 50,000.

Do I expect the mainstream media to change overnight? Do I expect them to give a damn that I even wrote this? No. But there's no reason we as gaming journalists and we as gamers should be left out of these conversations. If they won't give us room for our voices, we need to make sure they're heard in other arenas. Maybe then the truth can finally start to come out and the exaggerations and lies that are out there can be squashed.