Sexist attacks and lying about an imaginary sex-for-reviews scandal didn’t put a spotlight on anything. It wouldn’t excuse their actions even if they had been doing some real ethics work, but they weren’t even showing up to do productive work.

One reason why everyone who actually cared about those issues opposed GamerGate was because it distracted attention from non-imaginary problems and meant that anyone talking about journalistic ethics had to spend time proving they were acting in good faith rather than being part of the hateful mob.