Forum - View topicNEWS: New York Lists Media Blasters as Dissolved as of April 2011
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Posts: 23771 |
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Here's the first three paragraphs of the original article:
Okay given that everything above is factual, is it really so crazy that a reader would get the impression that MB is incredibly screwed (which it may be)? Really? Such a reader would be adding 1 + 1 and coming up with 3? Really? So adding information that a company that has been listed as dissolved can potentially rectify the situation relatively simply by filing some paperwork isn't germane at all for a reader to get a more balanced view of MB's future prospects? If I was reading an article about how someone was convicted of a crime, I would not expect the article to note that the convicted person has the option of appealing the decision if he or she so wished because that is pretty common knowledge that any normal person could be expected to have. When it comes to the topic of corporate dissolutions in the state of New York (or anywhere else for that matter), I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say the level of general knowledge is somewhat lower. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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That may be true, but I have to agree that the article was a little one sided. Allegedly, ANN discussed the matter with a New York lawyer. However, they did fail to mention that Media Blasters could continue to operate and works towards reinstatement under state law. Now excluding that isn't really unethical, and it's not factually incorrect to do so. However, it does leave out something that many would consider important to the article. It also leaves out something that many consider adding a little more balance to it. Certainly they weren't required to do so, and the story likely got a lot more attention the way they wrote it. Hell, this thread has added several more posts just because of the exclusion of that. There isn't really anything wrong with the way they presented the article, even if it was less than balanced. Personally, I think they should have mentioned the fact that Media Blasters could work towards reinstatement, instead of burying that in the forums, but what's done is done. There really isn't any point in anyone getting angry over it now. Presenting stories in a less than balanced way is pretty much the way news works these days. You get more clicks and comments, as this thread has shown. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Posts: 23771 |
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@dragonrider_cody - the only thing I would say about what you wrote is that you seem to be inferring that ANN deliberately with-held additional information to be more sensationalistic and get more attention. I don't believe that for a second. To me there are two reasons why the information wasn't there:
1) Despite their research, they were genuinely unaware that relatively simple remedies existed to mitigate/reverse a proclamation of dissolution in the state of New York, or, 2) They were aware of that fact but made an honest error in judgment in not adding that to the story that is not based on maliciousness or a desire to be sensationalistic. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Any of those are really a possibility. But an error in judgement is an error in judgement regardless of the reasoning. I highly doubt they were unaware of the possibility that MB could work towards resolving the issue, when it was tempest who added that to the conversation in the first place. Not to mention, they said they researched the issue with a lawyer, who should be aware of the fact. ANN also stated that they extended the deadline for the story twice, and they should have given them ample time to research the law. Now I don't necessarily think ANN intentionally made the story sensationalist, but by excluding important facts, either by lack of research (which is no excuse) or by an error in judement, they definitely made the story take on a more lively nature than it otherwise would have. The simply addition of "Companies that have been dissolved by the state can continue to work towards reestablishing listing their company and resolving the issue with New York", or something along those lines, would have definitely calmed some people down and prevented some from jumping to the conclusion that MB was operating illegally. |
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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Why didn't they contact someone at the Secretary of State's office in Albany to get some background on what dissolution means, how often if occurs, how often companies repair the problem and get reinstated, etc.? Talking to "a lawyer" is all well and good, but the SoS's office would be the most knowledgeable source. I doubt they would talk on the record about this specific case, but they certainly could have provided some background information on the process of dissolution, its frequency, and its likely consequences. |
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kusanagi-sama
Posts: 1723 Location: Wichita Falls, TX |
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I think someone is hacking Amazon and messing with seller prices. There's no reason for something to be $1000 like that. |
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RyanSaotome
Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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Nah, stuff like that is normal. Often times when there is something really rare, like out of print, people will put an incredibly high price, hoping some rich person will bite. If they don't, they typically lower their price after a couple months. |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Nope. Never once said that. The information is relevant to the story. It's absence does not make the article misleading though. If you read the article and thought: "Well...they don't explicitly state that this is reversible so it must not be" then that's not ANN being misleading. It is you jumping to an unsubstantiated conclusion. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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So the article should've explained the situation to you all better so you wouldn't panic or jump to conclusions.
Anything else or is that it? |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Posts: 23771 |
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Is this a subtle hint that I'm not allowed to respond to people like ikc who continue to question my position? If so, I'd appreciate that you indicate that this topic is closed to everybody, not just people who feel the way I do. ikc - no, I didn't jump to an "unsubstantiated conclusion." I quite forthrightly admit I know and knew very little about corporate dissolutions in general and corporate dissolutions in New York state specifically. I suspect I share that state with a majority of ANN readers. It would not be unusual for anyone reading the article who didn't know much about corporate dissolutions to be lead to the conclusion that I - and other ANN readers - were lead to. Do you contend otherwise? Is it your belief that general knowledge of corporate dissolutions is comprehensive enough that I should have been able to fill in the blanks left by the article? Okay, well then I guess well just have to ATD on that. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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No, but 13 pages of people basically talking in circles, I'm trying to distill it down. In your estimation, there wasn't enough explanation in the article about exactly what dissolution is. That's what I'm taking away from this. With you specifically this is a common thread - whenever there's news like this you frequently (usually while sounding annoyed and/or put off) say that you're expecting us to write up editorial articles explaining what the news means in the bigger picture, or effectively telling you how you should react to something. There's nothing wrong with that, but it isn't always possible (and it usually isn't - and certainly wouldn't be in this case - responsible to try and force every piece of industry news into some "big picture" thinking and what exactly this means for the anime industry yadda yadda.) I don't handle the news but I do like to know what people are getting at, and cut through the melodrama and hyperbole. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Posts: 23771 |
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Okay, I misunderstood your intention. But yes, you have distilled my point most clearly and succinctly. Look, I am just as weary of the circular nature of this discussion as I suspect many of you are. A very powerful argument can be made that once my basic point was laid out, I should have just remained silent while other people continue to argue against it. However, there is something intrinsic in my nature that if I have the energy and inclination, I will continue to counter posts that counter mine. I have also tried to introduced new elements to my basic point so that I'm not simply repeating the same thing over and over (even though, yes, my basic position boils down to what you have identified).
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Sorry man but that just doesn't make sense to me. If you admit that you know little about corporate dissolution then I don't see why would you assume it is not reversible. Wouldn't you instead conclude that you don't know and thus make no assumptions one way or another about its reversibility? If you don't know one way or the other then assuming one thing seems like jumping to a conclusion to me. (Again, I'm not trying to bust your balls over that. People jump to conclusions sometimes. It's no big deal. I just don't think the article was misleading).
Yes, I don't really see a problem with what you're doing here. I can't fault you for replying to argue your point when others keep responding to you as well. Honestly, I don't really understand the hostility most people exhibit toward any sustained forum discussion. It doesn't really make sense to me. And hey, on the other hand, if you don't want to discuss this anymore then that is okay too.
For what it's worth, I would also like to see that. I disagree with Blood's apparent assertion that ANN is basically required as a news outlet to do so to avoid being misleading and I fully understand what you're saying about how this isn't always possible. But yeah, where possible, editorials for news like this are great and I'd love to see more of them. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter
Posts: 23771 |
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@ ikc - no, I've already explained that the preponderance of detail that ANN decided to include about corporate dissolutions had the not-entirely-unforeseeable consequence of making me and others assume the worst. To say, "well, if you admit you don't know anything about corporate dissolutions, then why not make no assumptions one way or the other" seems like a pretty tortured piece of logic to me. It's not even that I necessarily assumed that a dissolution was irreversible - it was a matter of not knowing how easy or difficult it might be. I had information zero. You have this idea that the onus was on the reader to assume reversibility was fairly straightforward, or to make no assumptions at all. That doesn't gibe with human nature. If you read three paragraphs of "....ooooo, here's all the scary stuff associated with corporate dissolution..." it's the most natural thing in the world, I think, to assume the worst. All those assumptions could have been mitigated with a simple explanation of how a dissolution can be rectified.
As for Zac's point, I kind of missed it when he first wrote it above. First, in the three years I've been at ANN, I think I have asked for more in-depth reporting exactly twice: once, when Navarre sold Funimation last year and now this instance. So I'm not sure where this "frequently" stuff comes from. Second, I'm hardly asking for some intensive "editorialization" here. I already provided an example of the small amount of information that would have probably prevented me and a number of other posters from jumping automatically to the most dire interpretation of the facts that were presented to us in the article. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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You'd be surprised what people will pay for items willingly. But then again, some of them are just WTF moments..... |
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