Every so often a piece of reporting is so thorough that I don’t have much to add. So let me start with this: everyone should watch Mikhail Klimentov’s comprehensive investigation, into how former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick appears to have used the infamous lawyers at Clare Locke to suppress negative reporting about himself. The People Make Games YouTube channel was willing to publish the piece, which is deeply researched (and I’m sure reviewed by some pretty serious lawyers):
As the video makes clear, the key reporting at issue is a 2021 Wall Street Journal article detailing how Kotick knew about sexual misconduct at the company.
Much of the real story in the video is about the law firm Clare Locke, which we’ve covered in detail before. They’re the boutique firm that seems downright proud of how good it is at killing media reports, and at shielding the rich and powerful from public criticism.
We’ve had David Enrich on our podcast talking about Clare Locke and their extremely aggressive approach to silencing journalists from reporting the truth, and the Kotick story suggests they’re going to even greater lengths to chill reporting. That can eventually backfire, as it did here — though it appears to have worked successfully for a while.
Klimentov’s reporting goes above and beyond. You can tell how much work went into it, and how carefully every claim was nailed down, precisely because everyone involved knew Clare Locke would likely come after them. I want you to watch the entire video, so I won’t spoil it, but I will also suggest you read that WSJ article, because as Klimentov details, Kotick’s lawyers have gone to extraordinary lengths to claim that the WSJ’s article has been debunked. However, as Klimentov notes, the WSJ has never issued a correction or a retraction of that article.
Rather, Kotick’s lawyers have taken a variety of steps that might seem odd in isolation, but all seem focused on giving the impression that the Wall Street Journal story has been debunked and then using that to pressure other journalists from repeating the claims in that article. But, again, the WSJ still stands by that story, and Clare Locke’s evidence of the article being “debunked” doesn’t pass the sniff test (again, details in Klimentov’s reporting).
What’s interesting to me is that this is the same old story all over again: the coverup shines way more light on the original actions. We have a term for this. Kotick could easily have let that story die, and it would have faded into the background. Yes, people would mention the allegations that you can read in the WSJ such as:
Activision has been thrown into turmoil in recent months by multiple regulatory investigations into alleged sexual assaults and mistreatment of female employees dating back years. Mr. Kotick has told directors and other executives he wasn’t aware of many of the allegations of misconduct, and he has played down others, according to people familiar with the matter and internal documents.
Those documents, which include memos, emails and regulatory requests, and interviews with former employees and others familiar with the company, however, cast Mr. Kotick’s response in a different light. They show that he knew about allegations of employee misconduct in many parts of the company. He didn’t inform the board of directors about everything he knew, the interviews and documents show, even after regulators began investigating the incidents in 2018. Some departing employees who were accused of misconduct were praised on the way out, while their co-workers were asked to remain silent about the matters.
Instead, the lengths Kotick’s lawyers at Clare Locke went to, threatening (and even suing) games media outlets to kill the story, have made it a story all over again. Nice work, guys.