'Progress' is a primary defense against complaints. Particularly with regard to women and minorities in gaming, it's a shield.

Those outlets that don't rally behind their own self-righteousness have largely been the ones to change - am I wrong? If you cannot talk about ideology, you cannot talk about any sites excusing indiscretions for the 'greater good'. Katherine Cross' comment on PCGamer's disclosure and apology should have set off alarm bells; not only is their political stance the excuse for poor standards, it actually mandates them. Part of whatever this ideology is, is giving those who are 'in' a helping hand. This effectively includes producing native advertising as a favour - writing positively about a person in what seems to be an informative piece by a disinterested party. In order to be convincing and influence people, you can't say 'I'm close friends with this person, their game's the future'. You need to deliberately not disclose connections, as if you were writing a native ad without a notice. If you're going to consistently do that you can't keep saying 'oops', you need an excuse.

Ideology: 'the greater good', accusations about your real intentions in criticising them, and appeals to people's emotional need to be seen as a good guy are the excuse.

It's impossible to ignore the ideology when it's the defense mechanism against basic complaints about disclosure and abuse of their platform. If pointing out dodgy practices in niche press leads to you being labeled as a misogynist and terrorist in mainstream media, worldview might just be something worth analysing in the context of their behaviour and influence.

It's also their justification for (in my eyes, absolutely unethically) taking away certain people's voices and using them, as a demographic, to excuse their failures as an outlet. People they've done this to, who I met through all this, are now some of my closest friends. I won't be dropping this element of my argument.