Declaration of independence

A couple days ago I got an e-mail invitation from GSN for a personal phone interview with departing president David Goldhill.

Over the years my e-mail inbox has seen a number of such invites to interviews with game show people. I've always declined them, and the latest one was no exception. The reason is simple. I want this to be an independent fan's blog about game shows, without even a hint that people in the business can influence what appears here.

This is nothing personal against Mr. Goldhill or GSN. In fact, I've been pretty gentle on the network lately. I gave a fairly good review to the second season of Winsanity and a more than fairly good review to Emogenius. But I want complete freedom to write what I think about game shows, without worrying that people in the business will cut off my access to them or that they'll stop liking me. (Everybody wants to be liked, no?)

For instance, even in my favorable reviews of GSN's latest two shows, I noted their so-so or worse total viewer numbers. (Though the demos were okay for Winsanity and good for Emogenius by GSN standards.) And when GSN puts out something like Skin Wars - which I didn't much like and which I didn't even think was a game show - I want to feel completely at liberty to express an adverse opinion.

Maybe I'm being silly or over-scrupulous. But I'd rather err on the side of caution. People disagree loudly with my blog posts all the time. Read the comments if you don't believe me. But nobody can ever accuse me of selling out to people in the game show business or allowing them to influence what I write.

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