Hah. Sounds like if people are worried about that, they need more difficult lives. Frankly I've never paid much attention to game reviews unless they mention technical problems. The reason is why should I care what some other guy thinks? If I like a game, I like it regardless of IGN etcs rating. 

Because like it or not, the gaming media has a lot of power, especially over smaller games. If the games media choose to ignore a game or give it negative coverage, it could have a massive impact on sales, and as such, any issue over ethics in journalism are just as much an issue with what games get made and who makes money on their games (and therefore, who gets the privilege of making more games). 

This extends to certain companies and events getting blacklisted, or games being neutered as to not offend in order to get covered. 

Whether or not you care about game journalism, massive ethical holes could still very much affect you. Whether or not these holes are as massive as some maintain is certainly up for debate, however, a lot of the conversations that actually surrounded ethics were quite productive and many sites took steps forward to welcome improvements in their ethical codes, such as disclosure policies.

Ah, the fallacy of relative privation...gotta love it

It's long and complicated because of a lot of pointless internet drama, but the basics go something like this:

A woman named Zoe Quinn develops a game called Depression Quest and got a lot of buzz on various game sites such as Kotaku. Her ex-boyfriend then writes a Tumblr claiming that she cheated on him with five guys from the industry (one of whom worked for Kotaku) and tried to gaslight him about it, which would kind of contradict her claims that she cared deeply about mental illness since he has a history of issues.

This leads to a lot of people calling Quinn a whore and making unsubstantiated claims that she slept around expressly for the purpose of getting coverage for her game. This in turn, along with the negative reception to Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs. Women, causes several game bloggers to write posts about how gaming isn't just for straight white males anymore and to make the hyperbolic claim that, "Gamers are dead." At this point the whole thing erupts, with one side forming up to protest misogyny in gaming while the other side protests nepotism and corruption in game "journalism", meaning that both sides just talk past and harass each other and never shut the fuck up about it.

No, it's best not to care.