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Was CNET's firing of GameSpot editor Jeff Gerstmann a bizarre special case? Isn't it hard to believe Gerstmann was axed to appease an advertiser? Not at all, says a game reviewer who claims he's been pushed out by advertisers twice.

From: Scott Wolf To: paul@valleywag.com RE: Gerstmann

Don't for one second think that this kind of thing is unusual. Publishers and editors use "the appearance of integrity" as a smokescreen for their subsidized spinelessness more often than you want to know.

In 1997 I was fired as a Contributing Editor for PC Gamer magazine for publishing independently online a column about advertiser involvement PCG had already rejected. When Editors Dan Bennett and Gary Whitta learned of its publication I was fired immediately ... by email. No mention was ever made of my departure and writer Mike Wolf suddenly became PCG's "Wolf" in my place.

In 2001, I was writing the Eye In The Sky column for Furball: The UN-Official Dawn of Aces & WarBirds Site. I made a habit of berating IEN for consistently breaking promises to devote more time and resources to Dawn of Aces. IEN finally gave Furball's Matt "Target" Davis (now an IEN employee) an ultimatum: Either lose me or lose their support. I quit rather than make Matt fire me.