So I checked it out and, sure enough, they were. I don’t know Matt, nor claim to follow his or any other WoW blogs outside of glancing at this one occasion, but someone who does know him might want to pass along a word of caution if his intention is to be seen as a credible source of information or even to be taken seriously by his readers. Again, I don’t read his blog. He may not care about things like credibility or basic practices of journalistic integrity- plenty of blogs, like this one, eschew that sort of responsibility and serve completely different purposes and more power to them.

That said, I think Eklund is probably not someone I’d want to associate myself to as a blogger of any stripe (unless my shtick was to parody other ‘news’ sites) even to the point of referencing his rating system without a very strong disclaimer. I’m not sure I’d even want it known that I read his site!

He’s has done more to hurt the potential credibility of bloggers than anyone else I’m aware of in the last few years to such a point where teams have ran pieces on their websites asking fans not to trust the “anonymous blogger reports” that they can find online. This, in a sport that, for lack of sufficient television and mainstream newspaper coverage, has a fanbase that relies heavily on online sources for adequate coverage and even to watch the games (As a Detroit Red Wings fan, I have to either pay a ~200 bucks a year for the Center Ice package on satellite or watch the videos via online streams, which I do). Many major newspapers (Dallas Morning News, as an example) have more or less cut regular print coverage of their local team in favor of directing readers to an online blog instead. The NHL is fairly progressive in this regard… and still has had teams that felt sufficiently annoyed with his reports that they had to ask fans to take blogs with a grain of salt (presumably because of the negative backlash when he reports things like “MVP runner up Evgeni Malkin will be traded to the Los Angeles Kings…” when no trade has ever been discussed by any of the particulars who make such things happen for their respective franchises.).

For those who aren’t aware, Eklund runs a site called Hockeybuzz that posts hockey rumors and “breaks” trade reports. He uses the e-system of ratings shown at Matticus’s site and charges a decent amount of money for subscriptions to his site.

For those subscriptions, he provides a site without sufficient bandwidth to remain up on the most important day of the year for hockey trade prognosticators (ie, the trade deadline), features that are never implemented, and he has repeatedly been caught in lies, making up trades, and falsifying information (His resume, sources, etc). His track record is terrible enough that a site was set up to follow his predictions (http://hockeybuzzhogwash.com/) and show, at the end of a year of following him, how often he got trades right. The end result was 2.3% accuracy in his news reports.

The site I link above has a good breakdown of different things he did during the year that site followed him. They don’t touch upon some of the worst journalistic mistakes and questionable practices (falsifying resume, lying about identity, utilizing separate usernames to flame those who criticize him on another blog- then getting caught because they came from the same IP Address), though those can be found elsewhere if you desire links let me know, they’re found easily enough on http://www.kuklaskorner.com (a very reliable and upstanding hockey news site for anyone who wants one!) and other places around the interwebs.

To put it in more familiar terms, as I am extremely fond of silly analogies, Eklund is That Guy who gives Night Elf hunters a bad name, pulling the UBRS spectators by tabbing over and sending his big (red) white tiger cat at someone off screen because he couldn’t keep his tab/pet attack fetish from getting the best of him, only he sells himself so well that a lot of people don’t realize he’s a fraud until after he’s come around and ninaj’d their azuresong mageblades as it’s a clear huntar wepn (Onyxia loot tables have me in a nostalgic mood, what can I say).

Second: @Anna: While I know you and I disagree on the coolness factor of the “leak” in question here, I do agree with you regarding the implied credibility of the source. In truth, if it were any source OTHER than WoWInsider, I might believe that there was, in fact, a leak that did confirm the new race information. However, given that the source is inherently untrustworthy and known for publishing as “fact” their own heavily biased opinions, I have to view that little tidbit with more than a little skepticism. If anyone was going to be on the receiving end of such a leak, WoWInsider would be the last site I would believe about it. MMO-Champion or World of Raids would be FAR more believable. Since neither of them have made a peep about this supposed “confirmation”, well…

Also, given that the original data mining that produced the original rumour IS likely true, WoWInsider gets a free pass on their supposed “leaker.” They can make up whatever the crap they want. Even if it turns out that the new masks are just masks, they can then claim the “oh, well, the team took a different direction” card.

In short, WoWInsider like to play at real journalism without having to ever be actually familiar with what that means.
teh Khol Abides´s last blog ..Intermission: Casting Call!

I find it extremely ironic that people scream so loud about “good journalism” when someone releases news passed on by an anonymous source -when it doesn’t suit their desires-, yet they are very quick to embrace and defend the same “baseless rumors” when they like the idea. Anonymity: allowing people to scream and fling poo like enraged monkeys without fear of social reprisal since the dawn of time.

Myself, I like half the changes that were leaked, and really don’t like the other half. (goblins? Really…?). Yet I didn’t spend hours trawling through posts flaming everybody who defended WoW.com on that one. People should really learn about journalism before criticizing someone else’s integrity.
Omega2´s last blog ..Roleplay: Archeology!