I know of those issues but they're not really related to what I'm talking about, moreover with what you're bringing up there's the issues of what you can reasonably expect journalists to do about it.

I once read an article (I'd have to look for it) where a journalist discussed the time a publisher flew him out to Germany to test-drive cars during an event for their upcoming racing game and how it influence his opinion of the game in a positive manner; there's countless other similar examples you can think of I'm sure. While it's perfectly fine to criticize journalists for engaging in what everyone else can see is a blatant effort at buying goodwill, it becomes more complicated when you're discussing press access to review copies. EA controls who can access SimCity and in what environment, there's little that a journalist can do in that instance but agree to EA's terms and deal. If they refuse to play ball then EA tells them to go screw and they miss-out on the additional revenue their review of that game would generate, as well as raising the question of whether they're serving their audience at all.

That's neither here nor there, what I was interested in is A) the perception among gamers, and is is a widely held one, that journalists are beholden to gamers and required to share their opinion and B) that games are apolitical and political/social opinions are out of place in a review. Let me state though that I'm not defending any particular review or reviewer as insightful or correct, before anyone sees this and decides to respond under the mistaken belief that I'm offering to be a stand-in for Sarkeesian, Quinn, or Alexander. I don't exactly have high opinions of these women or their contributions to game criticism.

I will agree with GamerGate that the current state of game criticism/journalism is utter shit, there are some better than others but it's a low-bar to clear. That being said, having read GamerGate's proposed alternatives I can only conclude that their proposed solutions would make gaming even worse. And they've came up with some doozies, my favorite was the proposal long ago that there be some kind of game journalism ombudsman who'd oversee quality control among hundreds of different companies and independent journalists.