When a bomb threat was made toward the host of the Feminist Frequency program for her speech at a university in Utah late last year, gaming website Rock, Paper, Shotgun was quick to report about it on October 15th, 2014. When an anonymous individual sent a bomb threat toward the #GamerGate gathering in Washington D.C., at the early start of May, some gamers asked if Rock, Paper, Shotgun would cover the story, but editor John Walker didn’t seem interested.

In fact, Walkers exact response to the bomb threat was posted on May 2nd, 2015 on Twitter, as he flippantly addresses the matter.

I did follow-up and ask Walker if Rock, Paper, Shotgun would eventually cover the story but I haven’t received a response at the time of the writing of this article.

Some people have become a little less patient with the website, given that Rock, Paper, Shotgun directly implicated #GamerGate for the unverified and anonymous threats sent toward specific individuals last year in their coverage of the Utah massacre threat. This has lead people to question why the site would report on one bomb threat when it fit a narrative but not the bomb threat when it goes against said narrative?

One YouTuber, Hamrful Opinions did a brief video log on the incident following Walker’s comments. The video clocks in at just over four minutes and you can view it below.

Back on May 3rd, 2015 a post over on Kotaku in Action also criticized John Walker and the crew at Rock, Paper, Shotgun for the double standard of attributing blame to #GamerGate without proof but not reporting when the meet-up in Washington, D.C., was disrupted by a similar threat.

How serious was the threat to the meet-up in Washington? Well, according to a very detailed and thorough report on Game Politics published on May 4th, 2015, the D.C. MPD spokesperson explained to Game Politics that…

“On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 9:30 pm the Metropolitan Police Department received information from the FBI in reference to an individual posting on Twitter that a bomb would be detonated inside of 1602 U Street, NW (Local 16 restaurant and bar) if the event they were having was not postponed,” “The establishment was hosting a gaming event.”

“MPD contacted management at the establishment, and the decision was made by the management to evacuate the location and check for hazardous devices,”… “The establishment was evacuated and the premises was then swept for hazardous materials with nothing found.”

The threat obviously warranted enough attention from the local police department to evacuate the building and search the premises for said hazardous materials, and despite nothing being found it was a topic of discussion amongst some media websites.

Gamers are now questioning if some of those same websites that attacked their own audiences and labeled them as terrorist would at least be willing to offer reparation via fair reporting, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.

(Main image courtesy of Sgt Green and his Army)