There's sort of a Pascal's wager effect with this stuff. Let's assume arguendo that some particular target or another of the GG crowd is embellishing or completely fabricating elements of their story for whatever reason. What exactly is the downside of taking their claims at face value? Very little as far as I can see. Meanwhile, the downside of skepticism toward their claims is very significant. When you add to this the large quantity of verifiable claims of explicit threats and intimidation, I think it's pretty clear that the benefit of the doubt should be given to those who've been on the wrong side of this mob. And yeah, as folks have said, if it ever was really about ethics in game journalism, it isn't now, and you don't get a second chance to make first impression. Ask Occupy Wall Street about that.