Yesterday evening, we posted as our final story of the day a fascinating article about a new Nintendo video game titled Tomodachi Collection: New Life, which has been described as not unlike a Japanese version of The Sims. The crux of the article was that Nintendo had unintentionally made it possible for the male characters in the game to have homosexual relationships.
According to the article we posted, for example, “gamers playing Nintendo’s Tomodachi Collection: New Life noticed that this latest iteration of the game … had the option for the first time to have their male characters marry other male characters and raise children together.” Nintendo, however, claimed that this very forward-thinking feature was nothing more than a bug that they intended to “fix” by way of releasing a patch. That, my friends, is what you call a double-decker public relations nightmare.
And yet it’s tough not to feel at least a small pinch of sympathy for Nintendo and the awkward position they’ve placed themselves in, because after all, everyone screws up from time to time, am I right?
Case in point: us.
Yesterday, TeleRead’s senior writer, the very talented Joanna Cabot, emailed an article to me via Feedly about the aforementioned Nintendo gaffe. Joanna, as it happens, always files her stories via email, and recently she’s sent a couple via Feedly as well. I assumed the Nintendo story was her latest TeleRead article, and I proceeded to post it.
The reality, however, was quite different: Joanna had simply sent the article to me because she figured I might enjoy it. It was nothing more than a friendly gesture on Joanna’s part, in other words; one enthusiastic reader sharing a fantastic article with another. And that article, to be perfectly clear, was written by Timothy Geigner and published by Techdirt. (Oops.)
The article, of course, was removed from our site as soon as the mix-up was brought to our attention. And for what it’s worth, we apologize to both Techdirt and to the very skilled Mr. Geigner for the goof. (On the other hand, at least we didn’t blow it as bad as some of these publications.)
This was a worthwhile screwup just for the newspaper clippings at the bottom. Well played.
Yeah, that poor George Brownridge, huh? I about wet myself when I read those ads, I was laughing so hard. I’d love to know if he had a significant other at the time, and if so, what they had to say about ad number one…
This post is enormously gracious and kind, I have to say. For anyone who has read Techdirt, it goes without saying that we appreciate when our words are shared and we don’t get overly upset about things like this. We always appreciate when we’re pointed to for our words, and I personally appreciate the hell out of this apology post, but it was entirely too gracious for my taste. I’m just glad your writer enjoyed the post enough to share it at all and I’m not overly concerned about getting any credit for it.
That said, I’ll only hope that anyone who did enjoy it would see what else we write about at Techdirt. That you chose to link to a couple of books I’ve written takes the kindness even further, though I recommend anyone reading this to avoid my Aurora Chronicles book, since I wrote it before I learned to write and, frankly, it sucks.
Thanks so much for the note, Timothy — it’s hugely appreciated. And I have to heartily second Timothy’s suggestion about checking out Techdirt; it’s a phenomenal website, which is why we link to some many of its stories in our Morning Links news roundups. Seriously: Check it out.
Like everyone else, I don’t see how Dan could have handled things any better. I was hoping for a clear and well-played explanation, and he not only delivered but also treated us to that memorable ad. So glad a pro is at TeleRead’s helm. Of course, journalism is inherently messy; gooey brown stuff happens, again and again, even at the New York Times. The key is to be upfront, and Dan was. I also appreciated Timothy Geigner’s note and second Dan’s admiration of Techdirt.
David
David Rothman
Founder, TeleRead
Cofounder and Editor-Publisher, LibraryCity.org
703-370-6540
Thank you for the kind words, everyone! As I explained in my own post on this, Dan and I are both new to Feedly—I have been exploring it thanks to the coming demise of Google Reader. I didn’t realize that when I shared a link through their service, it sent the whole article, and it formatted it in such a way that it is virtually indistinguishable from a regular email. Lesson learned! I am just grateful that the fine folks at Techdirt were so sweet about it. It would have been so easy to jump to a different conclusion and send us a very different heads-up than the one we got. I do follow their blog regularly and I respect the work they do. I was as horrified as Dan was when I learned about the error, and I’m grateful they handled it in such a classy way. Thanks, guys!