In the video, which you may see here, Klint Anderson, a spokesman for the Weber County Sheriff's Office, mentioned that Preston's dad took away a driving video game, which is a good detail, fine. But the anchor smells the blood in the water. "Ahhh, ahh, something like a Grand Theft Auto? Something like that?" Objection! Leading the witness!

To be fair, Anderson didn't take the bait. "I have no idea," he said, "I didn't ask the father what game it was but some of those video games are pretty realistic."

Someone needs to tell Hairspray that if a child was playing an M-rated game, in Utah, this kid would probably be in custody of child protective services, not going on the Today Show. But then, it's just not as fun to blame Gran Turismo,

Did 7-year-old Learn to Drive From Video Games? [GamePolitics]

The prosecutor in the case of Nathan Hartley, convicted of "door-checking" two Maryland kids and sent to jail for 7 years, says he didn't bring up any GTA angle in this case. He said that was the strategy Hartley's lawyers took in an attempt to get the proceeding kicked back down to juvenile court. But it hasn't stopped mainstream outlets like Galaxy News Radio WTOP-FM of Washington from mentioning completely untrue bullshit in its report on the crime:

In the popular game "Grand Theft Auto," players drive virtual cars and intentionally hit pedestrians by smacking them with open car doors. It's called "door checking," and prosecutors say 18-year-old Nathan Hartley decided to try it with a real car last summer.

PS3Attitude actually called the prosecutor, John Mark McDonald, to ask WTF, and McDonald said video games had nothing to do with his side of the case. Said McDonald:

The suggestion came through the Defendant. I have never seen Grand Theft Auto, and had never heard of ‘door-checking' until this case. It was a defense he set forth in attempting to waive his case back to the juvenile court. The State did not introduce the game into the prosecution of this case. It added nothing. My comments on the game were to rebut his reasoning for doing what he did.

I did not suggest that the game was to blame for his conduct, and would not. The blame lies entirely with Nathan Hartley. I stated as much in court. As I indicated, I have never even seen the game and I was not passing any judgment on the game. I was simply arguing why I felt his justification was not valid.

In case you are wondering, Hartley struck his victims at 30 mph - they were two brothers, one 11 years old, the other 15. The incident occurred on Maryland's Eastern Shore last August.

I've heard of lots of things blamed on video games, but usually the crime committed at least had some tenuous connection to actual acts performed in one - shooting, typically. It's quite another to completely misrepresent what a game does, even if it's the defendant's side of the story. There's no "on the other hand" about facts, unless you just want to be a stenographer for straight garbage, which is what WTOP is in this case.

GTA 'Door-Checking' Case Prosecutor; "The Blame Lies Entirely with Nathan Hartley" [PS3 Attitude, thanks Parker.]

Rob Watson, the "Bare Knuckles" blogger for the Inquirer, doesn't want to come off as someone railing on the evil of violent video games. Still, he says "this is a bad idea.

"I would say 99.9999 percent of gamers who buy the Prestige edition will have a blast with these new goggles, innocently playing around at night with them.

Yet, it is also like giving away a free race car with Gran Tourismo or Forza - someone is going to cause a highway wreck. In Modern Warfare 2's case, I shudder (just a bit) to think of someone, who may have a hard time with reality anyway, donning these goggles for real mischief or even worse."

I know, I know, I'm cringing at that kind of dot-connection, too. But before you go ripping off this guy's head (well, virtually anyway), maybe his point could be rephrased. The night vision goggles are a novel promo; but think of the headlines we're going to get should anyone use them in the commission of a crime, especially a violent one, whether or not Modern Warfare 2 is said to be an inspiration for it. Yeah, I'd consider that a plausible and obnoxious consequence of the Prestige Edition, but it's still not enough to make it "a bad idea."

In the end, I am sure Activision's lawyer-mans looked at this and the risk of exposure. Someone blessed it, and they probably figured that it can't be said - in a legal sense anyway - that functioning night vision goggles sold to adults are an enticement to commit the violent acts depicted in a game, any more than selling a combat helmet is.

Night Goggles With a Game - Invitation to Mischief? [Philadelphia Inquirer via GamePolitics]

The boy's was found on the ground outside his apartment building at 7pm on Tuesday night, wrapped in the string and plastic he used to try and recreate a parachute in order to dive off of his thirteen story apartment building. He died an hour later at the Interfaith Medical Center. It's a tragic story, made even more upsetting by the amount of focus the video game angle is being given by the mainstream media. The source is one of Damori's friends, 11-year-old Shakar Murrel.

"He tried to do a swan dive like Jeff Harding does in 'SmackDown.' That was his favorite game. He played it all the time," Shakar said. "That was what he was trying to do. If I would have seen him up there, I would have told him not to do it."

From this we get headlines like the New York Daily News' "9-year-old Damori Miles dies in jump off Brooklyn apartment, may have been imitating video game", and "Boy fond of video game wrestler's swan dives makes plastic parachute, takes NY roof death leap" from News Channel 3 in Norfolk, Virginia. Even the wrestling news sites are picking up the story, with the Wrestling World News reporting "9-Year-Old Boy Dies When Imitating A Move Off SmackDown vs. Raw 2009; WWE Responds".

And what was the WWE's response? Along with pointing out that no WWE or RAW characters jump off of roofs wearing parachutes, WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman had the following to say:

"The death of Damori Miles is a tragedy and our condolences go out to his family," he said. "We should allow the authorities to conduct a full investigation... including insecure roof access, before conclusions are made about this unfortunate incident."

This is the most sense the WWE has made to me in decades. The roof should have been locked. Neighbors said that an alarm should have gone off, but it had not. The boy's mother had left him alone to go to the store. A 9-year-old who had received special education instruction, left alone to his own devices.

So many other factors, yet the one aspect most of the mainstream press are picking up on is the fact that he played a wrestling video game. A video game based on a sport regularly aired on television, where the same moves are shown on a regular basis.

What I find the most telling is the fact that the New York Daily News' original story had no mention of the video game connection, simply titled "9-year-old Brooklyn boy jumps from building using makeshift parachute and dies", written by different staff writers. THe same story from two different angles.

I guess the video game angle just makes for more exciting news.

9-year-old Damori Miles dies in jump off Brooklyn apartment, may have been imitating video game [NY Daily News - Thanks Jeremy]

Is Mayor Tortimer actually a man in California that asks for naked images from Missouri children? That's what Missouri's ABC 17 News suggests in a story posted on March 11th regarding the increasing use of game consoles as tools for sexual predators. The report, which you can view in its entirety below, suggests that Animal Crossing allows children to interact with complete strangers, encouraging them to exchange notes, items, and "favors" in order to reach the next level in the game.

Another example of the sort of sensationalist television "news reporting" aimed squarely at terrifying parents into tuning in. In case any parents are actually reading this, Animal Crossing: City Folk only allows other players to visit each other if they exchange friend codes. Your task, as a parent, is making sure your children aren't posting their codes on forums, or sharing them with strangers.

The whole situation isn't helped by the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, who seem to be aware that internet crimes are going on, but don't seem to have any real knowledge of how communication on the Wii occurs to impart to our newscaster friends. All they know is Animal Crossing is a kid's game, and adults shouldn't be playing it.

"I cannot come up with any legitimate reason that an adult would be playing that particular game," says Andy Anderson, Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force. Um. How about game reviews? Is that legitimate? I don't want to be playing for the wrong reasons here. Either Andy Anderson just isn't trying hard enough, or I am a sexual predator.

I don't mean to downplay the dangers of online play for children. As we've seen recently, it's an issue that's becoming more and more widespread. My problem here is that ABC 17 News is combating a real problem with misinformation. I know that news programs make a great deal of advertising revenue off scaring parents senseless, but a certain amount of actual "journalism" isn't too much to ask from our well-paid television news personalities.

Is Mayor Tortimer an internet predator from California? No. That's ridiculous. Everyone knows it's Tom Nook that likes them young.

Wii Gamers Vulnerable To Crime [ABC 17 News via Game Politics]

Speaking to Movieweb, Fallon - the former Weekend Update anchor on Saturday Night Live - says appealing to the coveted 18-to-34 year old age range isn't that difficult.

"I'm just going to be honest with what I like and what I do. What I enjoy. We're not going to hide the fact that people are on the Internet all day," Fallon said. "We'll treat a video game premiere like a movie premiere."

Interesting. Of course a premiere of anything needs a guest, and movies are a natural for late-night promotion because they have recognizable, dynamic stars in real life. I'd be curious to see who he brings in for an AAA-title that doesn't have established Hollywood talent in the voice acting, or making a cameo.

Jimmy Fallon Dishes on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon [Movieweb via GameSpot]

"Look at film in 1908 — there was no sound, you viewed it through a nickoleodeon, there was a limited filmic language developed. If at the time you had said film would be the literature of 20th Century, you would have been laughed at," said Chris Swain, assistant professor of interactive media at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. "Games could be the literature of the 21st Century. But it takes vision."

The soundtrack is also another evolution in, or departure from, the linear model of visual and recording arts.

Brown University ethnomusicologist Kiri Miller points out, the use of radio in "GTA IV" lets gamers choose their own soundtracks: speed metal for a high-speed chase, bebop for a nighttime cruise around the city. Choosing a station lets players set their own mood and illuminate their own character ... "In 'GTA IV,' the radio is speaking more to the player and not so much the avatar," says Miller, "and in 'San Andreas,' you could hear the radio really speaking to the avatar, and that, I thought, was an incredible achievement."

The story's peg is the upcoming release of Chinatown Wars. And there's not much in the profile that's going to tell you what you don't know. (Although Rockstar does have an office dog named Niko.) It's interesting because it's mainstream media, of course, raising a point probably not yet considered by many among its readership.

And the lede, I'd never really thought of it this way: "Books let us imagine the impossible. Movies let us see the impossible. Video games let us do the impossible." Can't wait to do some impossible tonight.

Is Grand Theft Auto IV the Greatest Writing of the Century? [Chicago Tribune, thanks weber12]

This week, I got to go on X-Play's Head-to-Head segment for a repeat performance with considerably less bearing* and more boob. Enjoy!

Head-to-Head: Videogames in the Mainstream Media

*When you tape these things, all you can see is a little red light on a camera - not a real person. Hence me talking over the other guy - sorry, Professor!

Darren Gold of charity Drugsline said: “Anything using drug-dealing as entertainment is sending out the wrong message. “Glamorisation doesn’t help our work trying to educate kids of the dangers of substance misuse.”

See? Now that's two things parents should be doing but don't in one statement - educating their children about drugs and keeping them from playing mature video games. I do like the little addition that The Sun reporter slipped in at the end though. "Experts predict the final edition is unlikely to feature explicit criminality. " "Experts" have apparently never played a Grand Theft Auto title.

Fury Over Drug Deal Vid Game [The Sun via GamePolitics]

"When you give players creative control, you have to expect they're going to do the unexpected," the prolific video game designer said. "Some of it's really good for what they were shooting for. It's amazingly explicit, especially when those creations are animated. We just have to make sure those people aren't messing up the experience for others."

This is from a post on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website, which aims to educate readers about the game, but not before touching on simulated genitalia first. See? The mainstream press isn't all that different from video game bloggers after all!

'Spore' designer spills on explicit creatures [SeattlePI.com]

I'm not all that clear on how Guitar Hero is going to promote literacy. When you think about it, the very concept of Guitar Hero is about dumbing-down an activity so every one can do it, which would make it the literary equivalent of a McDonald's picture menu, but it sure does give News-4's reporter an excellent chance to stand on camera with a guitar controller. Hit the jump for the video report, condemned there due to its auto-starting nature.

I think overall the answer to the question, at least in regards to the games they are playing, is not really, but I think we should all lie and make it seem like the children are smarter just so we can stop by our local libraries and play Guitar Hero in the future.

Do video games make kids smarter? [KVOA News 4 via Game Politics]

Then he watched the Sony press conference, and the world as we know it changed. After hearing about “Metal Gear Solid 4”, as well as other PlayStation exclusives in the pipeline and the awesomeness of Blu-ray, he promptly packed up his Xbox 360 and all his games and went down to Game Stop to trade them in.

I am sure the folks at Sony are overjoyed to hear oh Jane's boy's extreme reaction to their press conference, but had he been living in a cave for two years or what? He heard about Blu-ray and Metal Gear Solid 4 and decided to go PlayStation? According to Wells, her son reads all of the news sites, participates in chat rooms, and even watches G4...oh. That explains it.

Not heartwarming story about a journalists son is complete without a tender moment at the end, so I leave you with Jane's final words on the subject.

As we left the store, I said to him, “I never thought I’d see you with a PlayStation.” “Neither did I,” he replied.

*wipes away tear and adds a link*

The Ultimate Proof Sony Is Winning [CNBC - Thanks Dean!]

"Child predators are migrating from traditional methods to alternate media," says Detective Lt. Thomas Kish of the Michigan State Police. "They are going to places where children are."

This is the kind of story that would be easy to dismiss as anti-gaming propaganda - were it not entirely factual.

I personally know someone in the computer forensics field who has attended a National Conference, during which they recieved training from Microsoft on how to retrieve data from Xbox systems to aid in investigations, and some of the stories he has told me are completely chilling. Adults pretending to be children, asking if they can stop by to drop off a new game for their little friends after bonding via Xbox Live, for instance. Hell, Nintendo's friend code system is only safe until your child starts visiting internet forums to exchange them with 'friends'.

The sad fact of the matter is that child predators do indeed go where children are, and parents need to pay extremely close attention to who their children are interacting with when gaming online via console or television. All of the major consoles contain parental controls, but they are not electronic replacements for true parental controls.

Predators use gaming consoles to 'get foot in the door' [USA Today - Thanks David]

Still, I gotta wonder how they're going to make a movie out of this. As I recall, there wasn't much in the way of a plot to develop: Prince fights off menacing dude with scimitar, Prince leaps from one vertiginous ledge to another, Prince gulps down life-saving potion, Prince fights off two menacing dudes with scimitars at the same time... Apparently the big-screen version is going to introduce a quest for "a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world," which sounds a little more like a compelling narrative.

I want to believe it was written tongue-in-cheek, but then a later post by the author on a viral Indiana Jones Lego video fails to mention what happens when you type "Lego Indiana Jones" into google. I understand that gaming can be a whole other world to the uninitiated, but this is just ridiculous.

Who's looking forward to the 'Prince of Persia' movie? [EW Popwatch Blog - Thanks Mickey!]

Dobson laments "the new video that's out, supposedly for kids" that features "every form of evil and violence, from killing to raping to drugs to foul language to political corruption and racism." Kids exposed to this sort of thing, Dobson says, "some of them, especially those that come from dysfunctional families, go out and do things that are reprehensible." Beck, who has previously called us "losers" (no u are, lol), points out that Dobson is talking about GTA IV, adding "they say it isn't being sold for kids, but it is, kids are buying it."

We're emailing both Beck and Dobson, begging for the rape codes. We simply must try these heretofore unknown feature and readjust our moral compass accordingly.

Wither the American family? [CNN - thanks, Jeremy!]

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane.

NZ man 'used hedgehog as weapon' [BBC - Ninja Girlden]

Jeff, the uncle, recalls, "after seeing him laying there with all the tubes and hoses, cables and wires I think all my fears went away. My life was worth giving to save his, and if that's what it took, I was fine with that."

Six months later both Aiden and Jeff have recovered, with Shoemaker giving his nephew a gift that the child will never forget for as long as he lives.

Jeff Shoemaker is a gamer. He posted the story over on the SeasonGamers.com forums, understandably proud of his actions. In the midst of all of the negative press gaming has been getting recently from the likes of JC, Fox News, and the New York Post, a story like this comes along and none of those articles and accusations matter anymore.

Sure, it could have been anyone donating that liver, but this time it was a gamer. If the other media outlets want to focus on gaming in negative stories, I see no reason why we can't do it on the positive ones.

Baby gets first emergency living donor liver transplant at Cleveland Clinic [WKCY NBC - Thanks Brett]

Check out some of the other headlines I have found for this story across the web:

Parents of 5-month-old face first-degree murder charges - Illinois Daily Herald
Parents Charged with Murder - Central Illinois Proud
Parents face first-degree murder in death of baby bound last week - WTHI News

Not one other news outlet I can find focused on the gaming like Fox News did. Are they holding a grudge over the Mass Effect debacle or what? As more and more people start playing video games, will every headline start to read like this? "Man Who Played Video Games Robs Bank." "Video Gamer Dies In Car Crash." This is getting pretty damn ridiculous. Is there a video game angle? Sure. Is it the only angle? Of course not. How about "Irresponsible Young Parents Leave Baby To Die"? Bah. I'm going to go punch something and blame it on gaming.

Parents of Baby Left Alone in Car Seat for 8 Days Face Murder Charges [Foxnews.com - Thanks Orrin]

Charity Gives Children Something To Play [CBS 46]