Disney Punishes the LA Times -- Not So Fast There, Mr. Mouse

[sagegrouse]

Jason --
Any perspectives or updates on this story?

Disney’s Punishment of The Los Angeles Times Causes a Backlash

by Claire Atkinson

After The Los Angeles Times published an investigative report last month on the Walt Disney Company's tax benefits from the city of Anaheim, California, Disney retaliated: The newspaper's reporters would no longer be welcome at advance screenings of Disney movies.

That decision has now produced a growing protest over Disney's tactics, along with threats of boycotts against the entertainment giant and of banishing its movies from awards consideration.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society of Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics issued a joint statement saying they had voted to “disqualify Disney films from year-end awards consideration until said blackout is publicly rescinded.”

[wavedukefan70s]

I expect it to be rescinded in the next few weeks.Disney is about that money.i believe they will bend the knee to increase thier bottom line.

[davekay1971]

What an astoundingly stupid move. That would have been a nothing article. A major corporation with, by far, the biggest draw in Anaheim gets tax breaks from the city? Tell us something we didn't know. That story would have been forgotten in a day.

Instead Disney does an obviously punitive maneuver, threatening in an almost childish way, a newspaper with something that will not meaningfully hurt, but makes Disney look like a petty bully, and suddenly an entertainment giant who's family friendly name brand is its strongest asset has a much bigger story to deal with about bullying a newspaper that was trying to print the news.

Stupid, self-inflicted wound.

[Blue in the Face]

I expect it to be rescinded in the next few weeks.

It's already been rescinded.

[wavedukefan70s]

Ah ok.i have gotten suckered into the disney parks 4 times.no more for me.so i ignore disney most of the time.

[JasonEvans]

So, I think we all agree that Disney was really, really stupid to do this. They just killed any chance any of their movies had of winning any awards. Disney films will be conspicuously absent, I suspect, when The Golden Globes, Oscars, and others nominations are announced. It will be interesting to see if Coco can even get a Best Animated film nomination (it is currently considered the front-runner for that prize).

On a larger scale, Disney just attempted to tie reviews to business. Typically, the folks who do reviews attempt to stay out of any other aspects of Hollywood journalism. The idea is that if you are going to be a critic, you cannot also be a journalist investigating or doing profiles or any of that other stuff. Your opinion of the films must be separate from everything else. It is a good idea and Disney just broke that barrier. Really bad form on their part. It would have been much smarter to say that LA Times employees would not be given access to Disney corporate spokespeople or allowed in to media briefings and stuff like that. Tying LA Times journalism to movie reviews makes Disney look even more foolish in this whole thing.

-Jason "any time a huge corporate behemoth issues an edict that it then rescinds less than 24 hours later, you know someone messed up big time!" Evans

[PackMan97]

Disney clearly thought that most people read the LA Times for the movie reviews, in particular their reviews of Disney movies! LOL! That would be a bit like Disney saying that the LA Times could no longer publish Disney's stock price in their financial pages.

[cato]

Disney clearly thought that most people read the LA Times for the movie reviews, in particular their reviews of Disney movies! LOL! That would be a bit like Disney saying that the LA Times could no longer publish Disney's stock price in their financial pages.

People read the LA Times?

[snowdenscold]

People read the LA Times?

If it's the top article in that category on Google News I do...

[OldPhiKap]

People read the LA Times?

They have a pretty good crossword puzzle, although the NYT and the Journal have them beat.

[Doria]

People read the LA Times?

I admit that upon moving here from Detroit, where I was a loyal, daily newspaper reader, I eventually canceled my subscription to the LA Times because I kept building up terrible backlogs of unread papers. Fortunately, my resulting ignorance of the current celebrity events did not substantially hinder me.

[CameronBlue]

Ah ok.i have gotten suckered into the disney parks 4 times.no more for me.so i ignore disney most of the time.

I'm glad you said most of the time considering that their reach extends into live shows, toys and merchandise, video games, and entertainment park attractions. They own Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise. But I truly applaud your fortitude, it's a small world after all.