In My View: Is ANN worth paying for?

So recently I came across the suscription link for Anime News Network. Evidently, they've started to sell advertising-light access to their Web site. At least according to this, you can turn off some banner ads and turn of those really dumb Kotera links all for the low price of US$3 a month or US$14 for six months or US$20 for a year.

Which of course raises the question, is ANN worth paying for? Like I've said before, I have a love/hate relationship with ANN. Not because they're really horrible, but because they're one of the best out there and they're still mediocre.

And who am I to call them mediocre? I'm a reporter, or at least I wrote more than 300 articles for my college newspaper. I had the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle as a teacher. One of my mentors worked for the Asian Wall Street Journal. I've won at least one SPJ award. I've covered budget hearings, tuition raises, local businesses and am honestly a damn good reporter. Whether I'm a good writer may be another story, but I can spot a hole in a story fifteen feet away.

Case in point - The Eric Sherman interview. It's one of the best pieces of journalism that I've seen come out of ANN. And it still has at least three problems with it. First is a general style issue. The Q&A format works great for fluff pieces about people that we really don't care about, or rather we don't need any real background for, like VAs, Directors or any other celebrity. But for an heavy piece of journalism it's actually inviting the person to say whatever, without any moderation or fact checking. Like say, Sherman's now infamous quote about Haruhi (if one-third of the people who downloaded the fansub had bought the DVD, it would have done much better.)

So how many units did Haruhi sell? Um... yeah, even with access to Vidscan we didn't get those numbers. Nor did we get a comparison with a great seller like Fullmetal Alchemist. Instead, we get Sherman's baseless word that it didn't do well. Do I believe Sherman? Sure. Do I believe that Zac Bertschy knows enough about the industry to not let that slide? Sure. Should I have to trust that these two people wouldn't lead me down the merry path? Good lord, no.

Hole number two would have been so simple to fix it would take maybe a half hour of research for ANYONE to do. The same point that I lauded Bertschy on, is the point he fails to provide facts yet again. The point about Anime TVs reviews being focused on Bang Zoom! dubs. He NEVER tells us which shows they were. He simply leaves it to the reader to do the research to make sure he's right.

I hate to say it, but these are rookie mistakes. They're mistakes I saw freshman J-students make. They aren't mistakes I expect out of a professional news organization.

But that said, I cut ANN some slack. Why? Because they're the equivalent of a trade magazine, the AARP magazine of anime, if you will. I want them to do better, but I don't expect them to.

So that said, is having an ad-light version of ANN worth it? Well there's the access to the "Community" forums, which I imagine is pretty much like the regular forums, only with less people. That might be good. But is it worth $3 a month. I don't really think so.

About the only think I can see being worth the money is getting rid of the Kotera links. They aren't really annoying, but they're just so random, like it highlighted "cruise to the Bahamas" in the story about the NYAF cruise con. Why would I care about a Bahamas cruise when I'm reading ANN? It's just bizarre.

But that said, I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is. Starting this Friday, I will sign up for either a month or six month membership and tell you all about it. Maybe I'll be surprised and think that it's worth it. But I doubt I will.

Op/Ed: Thank you ANN

I realize that I haven't given out a whole lot of information on myself. And mostly I'll admit it's laziness, and the realization that no one really cares. But for any of this opinion article to make sense I have to give you a little background.

I went to college for journalism and wrote more than 300 articles for my college newspaper, The Daily Evergreen. If you don't believe me just Google Cameron Probert and it'll show up. (Yes I do vanity searches, I'm not too proud to admit it.)

So that said I've had a three year long love/hate relationship with Anime News Network. It finally came to a head about a year ago when they printed a rumor that Otakon was going to shut down/restrict the Artist's Alley.

And they were wrong.

Now that wouldn't have been so bad, if they hadn't then turned around and said "Well we thought it would be better if we printed it now." They didn't apologize for being lazy. They didn't say "Oh wait, we were wrong to run it." They didn't even do it right the first time. It was one of the worst pieces of reporting that I've ever seen. So bad in fact that it almost made me start my own blog to counter them. That fell through, but my general distaste for the Site didn't fade much.

Until yesterday. When I read Zac Bertschy's interview with Eric P. Sherman, the president of Bang/Zoom!, I thought I was going to fall out of my chair with a heart attack. It is the single best piece of reporting that I've seen come out of that Site. Not only did he bring up important questions about the state of the R1 industry, but he also took the company to task for its handling of the AnimeTV program. And when Sherman tried to dodge the question, he kept at it.

Seriously, it's so good that I whole heartedly reccomend it. It's made me believe that reporting CAN be done in this industry, if people are willing to try hard enough. That Blogs and News sites can disseminate useful and illuminating information and maybe, just maybe, I can stop resenting Anime News Network for having the ability to do these things and just dropping the ball.

Thank you ANN