That Media Blaster Thing

So basically last week before I took off on vacation the word was that Media Blaster got tagged by the NY State for non-payment of taxes. Knowing MB I didn’t think it was a big deal, since they were probably just putting off taxes as much as they could and probably missed something. But in the forum thread of that ANN post the ignorance came about about how so-and-so is no longer a corporation or whatever. The juice also got juicy when Media Blaster got back to them and stuff that happened that I don’t really care for. There was even some mention of something about some paper at some trade show? I don’t know, but it sounded juicy.

So now I am finally reading it. You can read this, but I think ANN just got it wrong by giving it the wrong spin and obviously Sirabella did not take to it in a way that is all that diplomatic.

If they want to cover legal crap like this, they need a tax lawyer or a tax accountant at least. I mean, seriously, corporate tax law is not exactly the most transparent thing. You’ll need experience to interpret this stuff because it’s more about process and what happens than what some paper may actually say. This is not like getting a traffic ticket. And that goes for the rest of us–if you see coverage of commercial legal preceding that does not have some lawyer being quoted on this stuff you will need to take it with a grain of salt. Furthermore, if you see someone quoting from the statute (as opposed to just referring to it) in a news article that is not actually about the statute, it is usually a red flag that whoever is writing about it is not a subject matter expert. I mean, com’on now, the average state tax code is already an alien language to most lawyers, how can you expect the average anime geek to understand it?

Well, I don’t want to be too harsh. This sort of thing happens all the time now, especially in tech reporting given the various patent and copyright wars being waged by these tech firms. But it really is not an easy thing to understand. I can say with good confidence that at least when it comes to copyright, even lawyers don’t understand it, it’s that complicated. So to me there’s a great need, an unfulfilled need in reporting in this area, especially when you have these horde of poorly paid, inexperienced bloggers writing up the news online, may it be Gawker or ANN or any other site.