Cooper Lawrence: "I Misspoke" about Mass Effect
Cooper Lawrence: "I Misspoke" about Mass Effect
January 26, 2008
The pop psychologist and author who so enraged the gaming community this week with her condescending attitude and false characterizations of BioWare's Mass Effect has 'fessed up to the New York Times.Cooper Lawrence made her comments to the NYT's Seth Schiesel, who writes of the gaming community's intense reaction to Lawrence's Monday appearance on Fox News' Live Desk. From the article:
The Internet hath no fury like a gamer scorned...
Bound by global message boards, blogs, chat rooms and of course the games themselves, gamers are perhaps the single most intense subculture on the Internet — fiercely protective of their pastime and at ease with the byways of cyberspace...
Irate gamers have flooded the page on Amazon.com selling Ms. Lawrence’s most recent book, “The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever,” sending its user-generated rating into oblivion... Many of the reviewers admit that they have not read Ms. Lawrence’s book.
Lawrence told Schiesel:
I recognize that I misspoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.
Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.
Meanwhile, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka told Schiesel:
We’re hurt. We believe in video games as an art form, and on behalf of the 120 people who poured their blood and tears into this game over three years, we’re just really hurt that someone would misrepresent the game without even playing it. All we can hope for is that people who actually play our games will see the truth.
GP: We're delighted to see that Cooper Lawrence has come clean. But we'd also like to know exactly how the Mass Effect beat-down was orchestrated by Fox News. As GamePolitics demonstrated in an earlier case regarding Halo 3, another pyschologist was briefed on what to say just before air time (see: How Fox Morning Show Sensationalized the Halo-in-Church Issue). Did something similar take place in this case?
So far we've received no answers to three questions we posed to Lawrence earlier this week:
1.) Did Fox News brief you on the game, and to what extent?
2.) Were you instructed by Fox News to adopt a position critical of the game for the program?
3.) What study from the University of Maryland are you referring to in your comments?
Comments
http://gaygamer.net/2007/05/sexy_64_all_male_gaming_league_1.html
Seriously, apology kind of accepted.
Ah, justice.
Damn right we are. However, the true news is that she fesses up on Fox News; which may not happen.
We admitted we didn't read her book and just posted BS
She admitted she didn't play Mass Effect and just posted BS.
Guess we're even
Guerrilla warfare doesn't work when the battle is for the moral high ground. Spamming email, Amazon, AIM, MySpace, or whatever may make you feel better in the short term, but will do more harm than good in the long run, since if we're going to make any SIGNIFICANT headway, we need assistance from those who are neutral.
They want to paint us as uncivil, childish trolls who don't fit in with the overall society. They WANT you to pull crap like that. You may win a few battles, but they're guiding you into an ambush. If we show ourselves to be uncivil, childish trolls, then the neutral will take the opposing side, giving them the majority.
Think about the American Civil Rights Movement in the 60s. The progress that was made GOT made because Martin Luther King, Jr. encouraged people to let their opponents bring themselves down with their awful tactics. The neutral parties saw the church bombings, crowd hosings, mob lynchings, and everything else, and was offended, repulsed, and willfully joined the Movement. It should be the same with us. Let them lie, slander, and whatever else. All we have to do is show these falsehoods with a calm, clear, loud voice. Right now we've got the loud and maybe the clear, but we're severely lacking in the calm.
http://www.debone.com/boycottFoxNewsSponsors.html
Feel free to call, write and email them saying how we will not support a company or product that in turn supports a station full of sensationalist liars.
The GamePolitics writer implies that Fox News may have intentionally tried to get the story wrong instead of just being a bunch of incompetent boobs talking about something they knew nothing about.
The villains here are MacCullum and the producers of LiveDesk. The rest of Fox News didn't smear Mass Effect... Yet anyway.
She spoke from a position of ignorance.
Until I hear or see the words: "I am sorry" coming from her, no one needs to let up on her. If you're pleased with the "I regret my remarks" bs fine, but obviously it is not enough for the rest of us.
As gamers we have never had a group to lookout for us. EA's response represents the first time a company has ever gone after a news company for false claims against a game.
As a 15 year vet in the industry I am happy to see a major company finally try and take on the lies that some people like to spread, but until EA's response actually gets somewhere, nothing has been accomplished.
Also, perhaps this deluge of negative press toward the coop will be a message to all other dim-witted a**hats who want to go on Fox and pimp their cr*ppy book.
PS> You can't accuse a group of people of indulging in simulated rape and pass it off as "a kind of joke".
A good friend of mine is a psychologist who's had the "pleasure" of meeting Ms. Lawrence, Dr. Phil, and other well-known psychologists, and according to her, they're all the same, a bunch of arrogant, obnoxious fakes who make millions pretending to know a difficult profession.
'Nuff said, she got what was coming.
@Blase - yep I keep thinking the same thing...
http://www.cooperlawrence.com
She also has another book listing that you can comment on here:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781...
She deserves to be run out of town!!!
Yea someone will finally admit they lied when their Amazon rating get trounced and takes a dive.
I'll pwn you at Halo 3 or COD4. Buy Mass Effect!!!
Go gamers. This shows what happens when one group speaks together. We need our own organisation to really get our views across. If any one knows of one then please tell me i'd like to join.
On a upbeat note, happy Winter-een-mas to all, and to all a good game.
It's great that she apologised but a lot of damage has already been done and
I guess the NYT readers aren't really the same demographic as FAUX News.
It's still too bad that the networks seem to be passing along their own personal agenda through the mouth of a so-called expert. The only two ways to stop this would be educating the public that believes what they hear or hope that these "professionals" stop selling their credibility for air-time.
On behalf of myself, apology accepted.
So why, dear lady, did you, an apparently professional and serious psychologist, go on national TV and spout absolute bollocks about a game that someone 'told you' was like pornography??
That's like me going on national TV and spouting off that your book is page after page of graphic homosexual sodomisation. I aint seen it, so I aint qualified to talk about it! You utter bint.
This is what passes for research these days? She asked someone else what they had heard? That isn't even second-hand information.
Exactly. No matter what someone tells me about something I might have an interest in, even if it's a friend, I still do a little more digging to see whether it might be of interest to me, even if it isn't of interest to a friend.
And as a "professional", even "expert", she should have been taught in college, and she has a doctorate and a masters so she's been to college, that research is more than listening to the opinion of one individual.
Quite frankly, it bodes ill for other researchers to have Lawrence act in such a manner. After all, if she does it for this situation, who is to say she hasn't acted in the same manner regarding other issues which she's being viewed as an "expert" on?
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
This just shows, that as a community, when we unite we can make changes. It's just a question of time. Most gamers aren't kids anymore and a lot of us contribute significantly to society in our respective fields. Gamers are also craftsment, soldiers, doctors, politicians, journalists and lawyers (we need more gamers of those last three, not the JT lawyer type, the Fixed News journalist type or the "protet the children, squash people's rights politician type but real stand up types).
I'm I am glad that Lawrence admitted she was wrong but I'm not surprised she came out as she did on Fox News. U.S. residents have all my support when they try to changes the news media for something that is not biased or sensationalist. I'm just glad I don't have to worry about this here, yet.
When someone tells you that you're going off faulty second-hand hearsay and you have no idea what you're talking about, maybe that's a sign you should keep your vitriol in check.
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/1599211793/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_img...
Her email:
cooper@cooperlawrenceshow.com
And her Myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/thecooperlawrenceshow
"You're right Ms. Lawrence, I didn't read your books. Someone told me they sucked and there was a new study out by the University of Maryland that said chick lit merged with pop psychology isn"t terribly good."
Fine, fine, we shouldn't be bitter. There should be more repercussions to her career than gamers saying apology accepted, though. She could at least apologize on Fox News and see if she can't get the rest of those idiots to join in.
The games industry owes its audience A TON- gamers seem to spend more energy fighting the ESAs' public perception battles than they do...
The least she could do was admit that it was a lie. When you misspeak, you don't portray yourself as an expert and act like you know all about the game. Hopefully, at the very least, Mass Effect will be behind us now.
It's a shame it takes a Nerd-Rush to make people apologise for lying and pandering to commercial tub thumping, in the name of a quick buck.
Still I'd say cool it on sending her any more negative reviews. It just makes us look bad, and like vindictive children.
She's best now forgotten amongst the rest of the media hacks and idiots.
Game over.
I also feel Cooper Lawrence deserves absolutely no sympathy- if she had ANY integrity she would have refused to come on the show to speak about something she knew NOTHING about.
All she wanted was exposure which makes her an ATTENTION WHORE.
In addition, her blatant man-hating feminism (the fixer-upper man?) also demonstrates she is no better than a garden variety bigot. Would a white supremasist (sp?) ever get on the air? Man-hating feminists are no different.
I'm really curious about what school she is supposed to be getting her degree from that a)is so easy that she has all this time to appear on television and not do things like, you know, study, teach classes, or work in the campus health center. As a phd student (not in psychology) I know I have these things called responsibilities that would prevent me from being the attention whore she seems to have devoted herself to being. Moreover, I'm curious as to what school would see her on television using her academic credentials to lie and not be a bit concerned.
I wonder how IGN feels.They're paid by the same person who pays the employees of Fox News.
Cooper really made a mock of herself, and I really hope more people learn from this. If you don´t like children to play videogames, at least don´t lie.
But then again, having experts comment on crap they know nothing about other than what they were briefed on 5 minutes before the show is typical 24-hour news channel BS. So I'm not surprised.
Hopefully she's learned her lesson, and takes from this not that gamers shouldn't be messed with, but that relying on Fox's talking points as your sources of information is just asking for trouble, because it assumes that Fox has done their research... which they clearly haven't.
And if it turns out the facts are complete bull, it's the "expert" who ends up embarrassed for looking like an out of touch tool, not the minimum-wage researcher who was given 5 minutes to write up the talking points, or the marketer who edited said talking points to ensure the discussion was as fiery as possible.
sometimes to get someone's attention you have to hit them in the pocketbook.
good that she apologized, would be better if she made a full retraction on the same news show.
And for some people to encourage the continued harassment after shes given her apology (albeit to the wrong audience)... Those who would argue against us think we're childish. Quit justifying said belief.
No point in bothering her any further; Fox News is the real problem here.
As infuriating as false news reports can be, it's important to remember that speaking out of ignorance is not the same as lying.
When Lawrence tries to ad lib her way through a topic she isn't prepared for, that's different from, say, Bill O'Reilly deliberately misquoting his own guests. You end up with a false statement either way, but one's more benign than the other.
Of course, either way, journalists have a responsibility to get it right — but it's clear that Fox News has no interest in getting it right, never has, and Lawrence is small fry compared to that.
Don't be like the one obsessive, creepy guy who's still spamming Kevin McCullough. The anger directed at McCullough and Lawrence has made all the difference it's going to. Let Fox News know what you think of them.
*cue Final Fantasy fanfare*
Pay attention to what Orange Soda says above though; this fight is over. Fox News is the main boss of this stage; Cooper Lawrence is now someone who we'll hopefully be able to look back at and say "she was just a poor NPC in the beast's control, but we freed her by hitting her with our swords".
...that didn't come out like I wanted, but hopefully you get the idea.
As for "fiercely protective". Of course we are. For years (decades?) gamers have been portrayed as immature children trapped in adult bodies and reports like the one in Fox News are the norm, not the exception, in mainstream media. Any group portrayed in that manner by the mainstream media will naturally become "fiercely protective".
Anyway, I agree that it's time to let her go and rip "Faux News" a new one. But uh...
About what Orange Soda said, I personally thing the Amazon bash was reasonable. At least the ones that didn't wish death upon her and just cussed her out. No, the more "mature" responses did more justice. I believe it was a good way to make our voices heard... Besides, even if this confirms this "childish" belief, Honestly...these come from the same people who games rise the crime rates in this country. I bet most of 'em think it contributes to global warming. >_>
Although, I believe the Amazon bash can stop now. Considering the fact that this'll be as good of an apology we'll get.
No we didn't. I'm still not laughing. It's fine and great that Lawrence said she was sorry after the Amazon thing, but the problem will continue as long as people like her will continue putting themselves up as puppets for Fox News. If these experts would just refuse to appear on the air and speak against a subject with no research for the sake of their professional status this would not be happening.
So there. Call me immature. I still blame Cooper Lawrence. She deserves a harsher punishment and to be made an example against the lack of integrity that's running rampant in the media today. Keep in mind this isn't limited to just video games either.
She got off easy.
Regardless, the conservative bias of Fox is yet another indicator that the christian right has firmly set their sights on games. I'm suprised there haven't been church-organized game-burnings...like what they did with Beatles records back in the day.
I agree with you, I'm an psych undergrad working in a psych lab with grad students and I can tell you they don't have time to host a TV show, sometimes much less for anything else, but school.
However, there are some schools that allow part-time grad studies, so Cooper Lawrence is highly likely to be a part-timer. I wonder what her grad supervisor/advisor thinks of her right now... Unless she's doing a Psy. D and not a PhD... which could make a difference.
Anyways, I'm still waiting for the Maryland study so I could comment on it.
Well let this be a lesson to so called "experts" that don't know what they are talking about when it comes to video games.
When I read the title and then half way through the artical. I couldn't help to think she's more reacting to her book then to the gamers.
Still, she at least tried to apologize, so that puts her above most of the people who insult games for no reason.
Gamers are getting the victories now, fter so long of talking to brick wall thompson its good to get some fresh air.
I'm very happy that she has apologised after looking into the matter, now we need to go gung ho for fox and get in a finishing move, the ball is in EAs court.
This, if it generates enough publicity can be a real turning point for respect for games, becoming self-consciouss of alarmist propoganda is something that is very hard to undo and can turn a lot of heads in our favour.
http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/19983/XPlay_Editorial_Fox_News_and_Ma...
On the other hand, as juvenile as it is to bash her on amazon just from this scenario (smile), it would be a nugget of sweet yak teat if we could affect FOX itself for ultimately being responsible for this to occur on its network.
Still though, victory marks for us, small though they seem, are still progress!
Did you see the roundtable portion of the clip? It's considerably worse then the interview. GP has gone after MSNBC when they've had J. Thompson on. It's not a 'left/right' thing, it's a 'FOXNews blatantly and knowingly' lied thing.
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Much like Kevin McCullough, now that she has issued an apology, let her fade back into obscurity.
Just goes to show, the way to make sure no one gets away with this stupid behaviour is to punch them in the wallet.
OH and where the hell was the ECA in all of this?
So we have learned that to stop people from lying about games we need to get them early. With McCallaugh and now with Cooper we got them early and they were able to learn how wrong they were.
The true measure of our power of influence will be if we could get the likes of Yee and Thompson to admit they were wrong.
But they are at the point that anything we do is just fuel for their agendas.
GP is bashing Fox News because of how the game was demonized blantantly and Lawrence was given false. Fox has a long history of this. Remember the Manhunt 2 coverage? Or the Halo church controversy?
Our point has clearly been made and an apology in the NYT is the best we can get from her out this situation. Continuing to bark up this tree just makes us look like petty assholes - not going to help gamers' image.
Wait a minute, EA has Lawyers (muahahahahahahahahahahahahaha)
this is how regulation should work not with bureaucratical red tape made by the goverment to feed the issenant machine but a backlash by the community, we do not need the government to protect the flow of money into itself over the needs of the populace, FCC get rid of it, liscneing boards good bye, IRS down sized, homeland sec back to the pit with you.
ack me trains!*rides a rail rider into the canyon below*
Who could've guessed that....everybody? Oh ok…
Seriously we should go and review all books of these ‘experts’ when they lie up to months after apology, maybe after a while they’ll learn that lying doesn’t pay?
To everyone that says this is childish, you are mistaken, hurting someone financially to get them to stop doing what they are doing is a time honored tradition going back to when the first trading standard was established(thousands of years)…
As for this ‘expert’, she can complain to Amazon all she wants, I’ll keep posting one star reviews until she explains exactly how this attack by Faux News was designed and executed…
Fox should also be punished, and forced to pay a large amount of money, and anyone involved directly in the creation of that "news" should be as well.
On top fo that, she outted Fox News on their tactics. She likely didn't even know what the segment was to be about, and given as little info as possible to keep her as knee jerk as possible.
At least she came clean about her misinformation unlike certain other people who are too deluded with their ideas of "holy crusades", ahem...For now, EA and gamers no longer have to lash out because the panelist apologized, and Fox News no longer has anything to add at her behalf.
But I do think this kind of rumor-mongering shouldn't happen in professional journalism. Passing on second-hand information and calling it research? That's just like writing up some bullcrap at the last minute before English class and turning in a barely done term paper. Fox sure likes to procrastinate on topical stories.
If she really wants to make a proper apology, she needs to go back on fox, on the exact same show. While on the show, she needs to defend the game against the exact same panel. This followed by an apology for acting as an expert in an area where she knows nothing about.
Keep making games and getting more kids to play them, so in 20-30 years, this'll be over and done with people who actually know about games in charge.
In the meantime, Fox News is just going to sensationalize and misrepresent anything they feel like.
Exactly how are people who bash a book they've never read any better than someone who bashed a game she'd never played?
Battle not with monsters, lest you become one.
News stations have two goals. Ratings, and money.
But it's good to see she came out about it.
Though you do have to admit its funny that her book was slammed by a bunch of people who haven't read it. She give a derisive laugh when asked if she actually played the game to find this content. Well she isn't laughing now that people who haven't read her book have put down their judgment on it now is she?
"Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it's like pornography. But it's not like pornography. I've seen episodes of 'Lost' that are more sexually explicit."
At no point does she say that she is sorry for her remarks or the pain that it caused our community. So I say that until she comes out with a real apology, I don't feel that anyone needs to ease up on anything anyone decides to do to her.
Until I hear the words "I'm sorry" followed by a laundry list of everyone involved with the game from the developer, publisher, retailers, players, and anyone else who took offensive at her offensive remarks.
I'm not surprised, actually. I think this is an issue that goes way beyond video games and Fox news. I think it's simply a side-effect of the way many/most news programs are run.
I wonder about any time a news network is doing a piece about some issue and has a couple of "experts" commenting on it. Just by watching the piece, do any of us have a way to know how much info the so called experts actually have, or how recently they were briefed? If it's an issue we aren't familar with, how can we know that they aren't making gross mistakes in what they are saying?
As for Cooper Lawrence... well, it's annoying that she spoke on national TV about an issue she didn't really have good information about, and I think she should have refused to go on the show unless she was given more info or more time to find out stuff for herself. So I'm still annoyed at her. But at least she's admitting the thing was a pretty much a joke now.
I work in the industry and everytime some stupid moron opens their mouth it hurts. It hurts our sales, image, and even my own reputation. I still get the occasional earful, scornful remark, or am simply avoided because other parents listen to these people and take what they say as gospel. I realize that blacks (as I like to be called because I was never in Africa and even if I was I would be an American African, but that's another debate) had a difficult struggle, but would you have told a black guy in the 20's that slavery only ended a few years ago, so the white people who raped your daughter isn't as bad because now you're free?
Just because change is slow to come doesn't mean we shouldn't demand respect from those who spit hatred.
Though you do have to admit its funny that her book was slammed by a bunch of people who haven’t read it. She give a derisive laugh when asked if she actually played the game to find this content. Well she isn’t laughing now that people who haven’t read her book have put down their judgment on it now is she?"
No, it's not funny. It's childish, moronic, and not even the least bit original.
But I have the same opinion about Family Guy, most Adult Swim comedies, the average Will Ferrell movie, and other such stuff. My sense of humor lies elsewhere.
Besides, funny or not, there are better ways to get the point across, as I tried to express earlier.
If you want to engage in other forms of protest, then perhaps you should provide some examples. I have one:
Let her know how you feel. She has a radio show on M-F from 7p-10p Eastern. You can call her here and let her know how you feel:1-877-6-COOPER
There ARE other ways. They wouldn't have worked. But there are other ways. Or do you honestly think sitting down with her and trying to have a civil discussion like two adults would have been any more successful than it has been with Thompson?
"Just because change is slow to come doesn’t mean we shouldn’t demand respect from those who spit hatred."
You can demand all you want, but you are a fool if you think you will get it.
So I am a fool to hope? That's not what I learned watching Shawshank Redemption.
I strongly disapprove of playing dirty. Protest however you like, just keep it clean. If people want to smear gaming's image, the best thing to do is to keep that image clean. There's no point in demanding respect if you haven't earned it.
As far as Lawrence Cooper goes, I think it'd be beating a dead horse to keep going after her. The point's been made. Keeping a grudge wouldn't accomplish anything. My argument is meant to apply to any such situation. As I recall, McCullough reacted badly to hatred, but became more reasonable once he heard arguments from people who were willing to be reasonable. It won't work on the severely closed-minded, but just because some are lost causes doesn't mean that others who take their position are also lost causes.
I can accept McCollough's and Lawrence's half-apologies, because they've at least gone so far as to admit that they've done something wrong, which is more than some people have done. I can respect anyone who is capable of admitting wrongdoing. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt.
This does not affect just me, but my kids as well. Because I work in the game industry, there are parents out there who simply will not let their kids play with mine because they fear that because I work in the industry I let my kids play whatever games they want.
When I first discovered this, I became a more active parent in the school in an attempt to disspell those rumors, but so long as chicks like this can get on the air and spout lies, I have no problem with what other people are doing. Short of physical harm, I don't see anything wrong with people expressing themselves however they like.
Perhaps after this sideshow goes by the wayside, others will see how the community reacted and will think twice.
I mean, admitting her folly to the Press ALREADY negated my hate for her, but daaaaang, that is FULL of win!!!
/+10,000 rep
/IT'S OVER NINE-THOUSAAAAANNND!!!1!11