Chris Staniforth's death: Sensationalist journalism is never far away from videogame reporting

From Alan Titchmarsh’s entirely misinformed parade against gaming at large on his self-titled chat-show (if you’ve yet to see that in question, it’s truly astonishing to see such ill-conceived statements broadcast on mainstream TV) or The Daily Star’s wholly misinformed/ludicrous suggestion that Raoul Moat was the lead inspiration behind the next GTA game, gaming’s relative adolescence has come under scrutiny more times that we’d like to admit.

This week’s upsetting news that a 20-year old, Chris Staniforth had died through suffering from deep vein thrombosis, caused through extended periods of play on his console of choice - up to 12 hours in one sitting, so we're told – could well have been met with the same ridicule and hate, but rather is now a case study being used to raise awareness of the health risks that gaming can present.  

This sort of "scapegoatism," taking advantage of the death of another to prove a point in your own system of morals just seems wrong

Other sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3934277.stm
http://tinyurl.com/3mqqqjb

Jason England

I am the freelance tech/gaming journalist, lover of dogs and pizza enthusiast. You can follow me on Twitter @MrJasonEngland.

http://stuff.tv/team/jason-england
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