Oregon Live writer Eder Campuzano wrote in support of child porn apologist Alison Rapp Antonio Follow May 12, 2016 · 3 min read

Eder Campuzano, a writer for the Oregonian newspaper, recently created controversy by attributing fabricated quotes to British tech journalist Milo Yiannopoulos. While Yiannoupoulos’s talk was public and posted to Youtube, Campuzano relied on anonymous Twitter users to inform him about what Yiannopoulos said. Even after Campuzano was forced to retract the claim, he refused to apologize to Yiannopoulous.

Now it turns out that Campuzano has engaged in similar behavior targeting other individuals and groups, including a hitpiece in defense of Alison Rapp, a child pornography advocate who was fired by Nintendo for having a second job.

The Alison Rapp controversy

When Nintendo fired an employee named Alison Rapp for having a second job in prostitution, many politically inclined journalists pounced on her tweets lamenting her firing, without even waiting for Nintendo’s response. Patrick Klepek and Jesse Singal were among those criticized for this response.

Campuzano is a journalist with a lower profile, so he escaped much scrutiny at the time. However, it is worth looking at what he wrote. Campuzano joined Klepek and Singal in writing a hitpiece on Nintendo and Rapp’s critics, and did so prior to getting the company’s side of the story, judged by the fact that it was updated to reflect the company’s statement.

Moreover, the Nintendo statement was qualified as being “provided to Mashable”. It would appear that Campuzano had not even bothered to reach out to Nintendo for its response, but went ahead and wrote a sloppy, one-sided hitpiece on the company and supporters of the Gamergate movement anyway.

For the uninitiated, GamerGate is a collective of folks who actively harass women in the industry under the guise of crusading for ethics in games journalism.

He provides no evidence for these claims, and the evidence for his other claims comes from someone’s say-so. While journalists are supposed to check sources and verify facts, Campuzano did none of those things. He jumped the gun and had to change the title of his article to reflect facts that later came to light.

Defending a child pornography advocate

While Campuzano claims that allegations that Rapp supported child pornography are an “online smear campaign”, there is plenty of evidence that would disprove his claims. In a tweet to a critic, he wrote the following:

It’s a pretty gross misinterpretation of her research. That’s why it’s a smear campaign.

It appears that Campuzano is not particularly familiar with Rapp’s thesis, because it involved no research, only an argument. An argument in favor of Japan’s refusal to criminalize the possession of child pornography. Could it be that Rapp was merely playing devil’s advocate, and that her thesis did not reflect her own views?

In fact, Rapp herself cited her ‘IR thesis’ as providing the justification for her outrage over a man being arrested for possession of child pornography. She also admitted to supporting “non-censorship” of child pornography.

A ‘smear’ of former Nintendo employee Alison Rapp.

Given the fact that the evidence is easily accessible, why does Campuzano appear unwilling or unable to confront the facts? It is unlikely that it is incompetence, because he has worked as a journalist for many years. Instead, it is his unwillingness to let facts get in the way of the narrative.

That is the problem with a lot of journalists today. While the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics requires that journalists work hard to make sure that their work is accurate and correct, such care is all too often neglected when the news story is convenient for a writer’s political worldview. Campuzano has shown a strong dislike for movements decidated to promoting ethics in journalism, and his conduct shows why.