(Philip Kollar is not the pickle, just so you know.)

Is it Friday already? And we had just started shaking this “Text Tree” for all it’s worth! (Yes, we’re a bit ashamed of that joke as well.) Rounding out our week of interviews on new media is Philip Kollar, ex-1UP.com News staffer, current freelancer and Eat-Sleep-Game writer. You may know him as one half of the 1UP FM Podcast team, you may know him as occasional star of the recently departed “1UP Show”, you may know him from his work at Evil Avatar — we just know him as that dude in the front of the line at the Capcom Press Conference. And even though he’s assuredly scrambling at the moment to keep his rent coming in on time, he was happy to tackle the last day in our interview series. To check out more from Phil, head over to Eat-Sleep-Game.com and subscribe to their new podcast, unironically titled, “Rebel FM.”

Without further rumination, the Geekadelph presents the final day of “Text Tree.”

(with a special bonus round on Monday for all you McElroy-ites out there)

(GEEK): In your time at 1UP, you not only spearheaded one of their most popular new podcasts but also regularly starred on “The 1UP Show” video podcast where members of the 1UP and EGM crews discussed games. Could you explain why you think new forms of content delivery (podcasting and other multimedia) are important in journalistic coverage?

I think new media is an important part of all Internet coverage, whether you’re talking journalism, entertainment, criticism, or anything else. We’ve quickly reached a point where, yes, people still read text, but they also expect video and audio content alongside text for virtually any subject they’re reading about online. iTunes and YouTube have given people new ways to take in content about their hobbies and the things they love, so it would be foolish to not try to reach your audience through those new mediums. Beyond that, video and audio allow for different kinds of coverage than straight text. They’re better-suited for having a dialogue about a game, for example, rather than a simple text review. They also provide further opportunities to involve the community in the discussion, which is an essential piece of success for a website in a democratized online world.

(GEEK): In the light of the recent events with Ziff-Davis and 1UP/UGO, it could be said that the cutbacks we’ve seen budget-wise in games journalism are symptomatic of changing business models, due to the internet, that are effecting journalism on the whole. In that regard, do you believe that publishing houses in the games journalism industry are adequately adapting to changing business models?

I don’t think the cutbacks in game journalism that you mention are due to the internet per se — I mean, the cutbacks are happening even in online-only properties that have been around for years. In my opinion, it’s more symptomatic of a lot of larger economic problems of the time, including a really dismal advertising market. I’m not remotely a business person, so I’m not the right guy to ask about analyzing all of this stuff, but layoffs and budget-slashing from major gaming websites and publications (just like layoffs at publishers and developers) is a strong sign to me that the videogame world isn’t as recession-proof as Michael Pachter and others have proclaimed.

(GEEK): What else do you believe we should be doing, as journalists, to pursue better coverage going forward? What should we be doing better?

To be totally clear, I wouldn’t consider myself a journalist now that I’m no longer doing news. I’m far more interested in the critical end of the game writing spectrum, and I think there’s a lot of room for growth there. The vast majority of gaming sites are stuck in that endless preview-review loop that focuses only on the biggest games and on talking about them in the shallowest sense possible. There will probably always be a place for those on some websites, and it will always be popular, but I think there is a growing audience of videogame enthusiasts who want to hear and read about their games on a deeper level, people who are more interested in the analysis and unique insight a critic can provide moreso than some meaningless score. And this also includes extending the discussion of a game beyond the first week or two after its release. One of the coolest projects I helped create at 1UP — and one that I hope to continue in some form very soon — was Backlog, a segment on 1UP FM where we played and discussed older games. We would pick one game and focus on it for four or five one-hour segments spread over the course of a month. The amount of time we spent talking about a single title allowed us to really get in-depth on each game and explore its strengths and weaknesses, what kept our attention over a long span of time and what didn’t work, etc.

In terms of straight news coverage, although I’m not focused on that myself currently, I think the key is that there needs to be actual journalism brought to it. Major gaming blogs like Kotaku and Joystiq (and, yes, even news.1up.com) pump out an awful lot of content by pulling and rewording press releases or stories from other sites. To some degree, this is unavoidable. Each of the major blogs is expected to cover every story that happens, so if that means reporting off of info from a secondary source, they often must. But I’m afraid a lot of writers for those blogs (as well as other smaller blogs) aren’t being taught the importance of digging into sources, questioning the validity of sketchy information, and bothering publishers or developers or whoever is involved in a story for more info. Writing in blog format isn’t an excuse to be lazy. If a story seems fishy or no one has bothered to get an official comment on something, any real journalist will actually check that out and dig deeper with a critical eye. And I sincerely hope that doesn’t come off as high and mighty, because god knows I am far from the perfect journalist. There’s a reason I backed off from that title when you asked that question!