This isn’t explicitly horror-related, but I feel that it is worthy of a post.

The Daily Herald, an Everett, Wash. newspaper, is carrying a feature titled “Violent video games are training children to kill.” The article asserts (without the back up of any sort of source information) that games use “simulation techniques” to train children to dehumanize people and become ruthless killers. The author even draws a link between games and the recently-convicted serial killer Gary Ridgway. The article makes no attempt to convey the controversy surrounding game violence, and it presents the author’s opinions as fact. Please write the author or one of the editors about the article’s disgusting lack of journalistic integrity. Please keep your comments civil and polite–your argument will be much more convincing that way too.

If you need some sources to refute the authors claim that it is a “fact” that “research shows that playing violent video games increases children’s violent thoughts and aggressive behaviors,” try The American Academy of Family Physicians.

I’ll post my own message to the features editor shortly.