The latest installment of my Zimba blog shares my thoughts on how I describe what I do to others. That there is an unavoidable tension in the poker world on how to present news or the different perspectives that often make up different parts of a news story.

Zimba Blog:

People I encounter naturally ask what I do. To some I say I'm a writer. To some I say I'm a reporter. To others I say I manage some websites. It would be more accurate to say I develop poker content for several websites, but that always requires further explanation.

The writer evokes the romantic scenario of being relatively broke but sharing their their creative musings for the love of it. The reporter portrays the practical journalism that fills our newspapers, airwaves and online. Managing websites seems to confuse more than clarify. In my case, I create a mix of news articles, strategy pieces, player profiles, interviews and blogs on poker related topics while fostering community.

Within that range of writing, I definitely enjoy the more creative work. On the whole, I find the most interesting and compelling poker content involves opinion and analysis. But much of what I enjoy deviates from strict reporting of news. Writing another Day 2 report from some random tournament is rarely interesting or creative, but it probably qualifies as one of the purest forms of poker news. The reality is that by mainstream traditional news media standards, it is almost a misnomer to call much of what is presented at poker news sites as news. If you were to remove anything that contained opinion, promotion, commentary, or advertisement, there would be very little left.

There is a significant tension at poker news sites in determining what they should present and report. I'll give a couple examples to illustrate this point. Recently we learned of the 18 year-old Portuguese Prodigy Jose "Girah" Macedo. Once the public learned of his success on poker forums, he made the podcast rounds to share his compelling success story which was well received. Soon after he became a sponsored Lock Poker pro. He belatedly participated in their recent Lock Poker Pro Challenge promotion.

Items that came out:

News #1 - Macedo wins Lock Poker Challenge with late surge (from Lock Poker)
News #2 - Macedo disqualified from Lock Poker Challenge for multi-accounting (from Lock Poker)
News #3 - Macedo accepts responsibility saying he earned the win, but his backer played on his account one night so he accepts his disqualification (from Macedo blog).
News #4 - Macedo is accused of possible chip dumping and collusion. Lock poker player feels Macedo's playing should be questioned as he won the contest with late month activity, by playing high stakes games that almost never run on Lock and with large wins against two new players that appeared out of seeming nowhere, one being Portuguese. (Posted on a couple of poker forums by a reputed regular Lock Poker player)

Which of these stories represents the true news? Which of those stories is newsworthy and worth sharing? At different points in time, each may tell a valuable side of the story or may be a complete falsehood. Is it up to the writer or the reader to decide which is more believable and worthy? Is the writer simply to pass along the information that is presented to them without questioning?

A similar tension can be found in the regular conflicting news associated with UB/AP since Black Friday. There are multiple individual sources presenting information that portrays UB/AP as corrupt, likely to not return player money, and in turmoil and near collapse, while official press releases from UB/AP paint a reasoned cheery portrayal of corporate events in response to Black Friday.

Should a companies press release be more or less scrutinized than that of an independent critic or observer? Are we to share all perspectives and allow time and further discovery determine the ultimate truth? Is it irresponsible to air items that are more than likely to be untrue?

The tension I see in the "poker news" world is one reason I don't call myself a poker journalist. I have yet to find in the poker news world where the selection of what stories to cover and their resulting slant isn't influenced by internal and external business relationship considerations.

Thankfully, at the sites I work with I have reasonable freedom within a certain "business framework" to prepare a range of poker content. I try to create poker content that is interesting and educational, entertaining and informative. My goal is to share more than just news, but different perspectives. Even in the news business, it's tough to have the answer. So I see value in sharing the different perspectives and allowing the reader to sift through them to determine what rings true.

First Zimba Blog: I Want That Feeling, One Time!
Second Zimba Blog: Sunday Poker Diatribe
Third Zimba Blog: Thoughts and Experiences with Cheating in Poker
Fourth Zimba Blog: The Myth of Money Won in Poker
Fifth Zimba Blog: Poker Super Powers - The Cloak of Invincibility
Sixth Zimba Blog: The Good News About The Portuguese Prodigy
Seventh Zimba Blog: Finding Your Place In Poker
Eighth Zimba Blog: Poker Empathy
Ninth Zimba Blog: Poker - A Global Game
Tenth Zimba Blog: 10 Things I Learned From My First Week Not Playing Poker
Eleventh Zimba Blog: The Blame Game
Twelfth Zimba Blog: Commentary on FSG 218 Eligible Poker Pros List

Zimba Blog: Poker News or Perspective?