Seems like everyone is using the comments to throw shade on Disney, but I'd like to praise the LA Times for publishing good reporting under pressure not to.
Despite not technically being an independent paper (Are there any anymore?) I have long admired the LA Times as one of, if not the only, US paper left that does what seems like independent journalism and is not afraid to call out stories everyone else is ignoring.
Well, not really. Reading between lines, I'm assuming they're discouraging any future bad press articles from LA Times and all other news outlets, not necessarily suppressing a single article. Whether it's effective in the long run will be hard to determine as we can't measure future unpublished articles we never hear about.
If I were the LA Times, every Disney movie review would be replaced by text saying "Disney has blacklisted us from early screenings as a retaliation for an article we published on them. When our reviewer has a chance to attend a normal screening we will place the review here, until then, please enjoy this reprint of the original article".
I would also urge the LA Times to consider submitting 1 star reviews to various review aggregators (metacritic/rotten tomatoes) due to being unable to view early screenings. I think the critic industry should stand up to this sort of strong arming.
It'd be fitting if the stink of this move clung to their creative productions.
>Disney CEO Bob Iger is said to have ordered the retaliatory measure against the LA Times, and is also thought to be considering a 2020 presidential bid, which augurs poorly for his approach to the free press.
Wow, I hadn't heard this was a possibility until now. I sure am looking forward to seeing which of the many {m/b}illionaires ends up winning the presidency in 2020! How about we just cut out the middlemen and make it a big national bidding war. Most money offered gets to be president.
Let's just start selling the role outright. It would be more efficient, most likely lead to the same result, and avoiding the grating, bullshit horserace coverage for a year would make everyone's live better.
These stories of malfeasance by elected officials, where the representatives act so clearly against their office and the public good, present a conundrum. The campaign contributions even at a national level simply aren’t enough money to incentivize the given level of corruption.
I really want to know: what are the incentives? Are there secret payments?
I remember Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was convicted for receiving porch renovations, and his legislative actions were worth billions to the industry providing gifts in kind. It doesn’t make sense, perhaps we are not discovering the true payments.
I'm glad corporate influence on local politics is getting as much attention as it is, between this story and Amazon's second headquarters bid war. I hope these stories garner enough attention to call citizens to action. At the very least, we need to elect officials that will prioritize oversight of these public/private deals.
Below I've linked a few more. It's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma: whichever media outlets don't participate in the boycott will have a competitive advantage when they put out early reviews, but it hurts all outlets if Disney is able to pull off the intimidation power play.
Giantbomb doesn't, as far as I can tell. Jeff Gerstmann started the site shortly after he was let go from GameSpot (rumored) for posting a low-score review of a game which was advertising heavily on their platform.
Indeed they do - because video game journalism does not have the same ethical standards (not in the Gamergate sense) that film and literary journalism do.
The main difference is that gamers are much better connected than movie goers I think. This sort of behavior might not have as many repercussions for movie studios as it does for gaming studios.
I think companies need to fail every once in a while, to teach them humility. Companies that are too big to fail learn only pride and arrogance. As we should know from the history of theater, hubris is the one thing that telegraphs more than other that the character is headed for some dramatic comeuppance.
Four critics' groups have already declared a boycott on Disney with respect to their awards presentations, explicitly citing the LA Times ban as their reason.
We do not have an adversarial press in the US anymore. There is virtually no investigative journalism from major outlets that threatens the status quo at all.
BTW TFA caused my laptop to heat up with all the ads.
So let's assume the people who run Anaheim are not idiots. My question would be did they run the cost analysis of these tax breaks for Disney versus the expected boon to the city from other incomes? If the income from externalities is greater than the actual income would have been from Disney, it seems like it would have been a decent decision. This is of course ignoring political principles of fair taxation.
"Anaheim has made a number of seemingly inexplicable decisions that offered millions in direct subsidy to Disney: for example, the city spent $108.2m to build Disneyland's new parking garage (where visitors pay between $20 and $35/day to park), and charges the company $1/year to lease it. The garage was financed with bonds that will pay out $1.1B in interest, and when they are paid off, the company will own the garage."
Wow. That's infuriating. The people of Anaheim should be irate. A total of $1.2 billion essentially donated to Disney over however many years those bonds are for. I wonder if anyone violated any laws to make that deal happen...
This is similar to the tactic used by Harvey Weinstein to discourage newspapers from reporting on rape allegations against him.
Journalists that participated in the cover-up got access to his film premieres, parties at award ceremonies, interviews with celebrities and so on. Turns out that was enough to get every entertainment journalist to cover up his crimes for years.
Apparently people in Hollywood don't see any problem with this!
> Apparently people in Hollywood don't see any problem with this!
I suspect the bigger problem is that there are so few honest people involved in the business that you would have to shut down if you broke off association with everybody doing shady things in Hollywood.
While I'm pleased to see Weinstein going down, I keep scratching my head about "We know that there are people in Hollywood doing far worse things. Why the focus on Weinstein in particular? Something smells kind of fishy ..."
Same thing happens with pro sports teams, especially when it comes to coverage of stadium subsidies. If you want year around free content via access to players and staff, you can't report anything that harms the business side of the operation. So now almost every local media outlet cheerleads for new stadiums and arenas to be paid for by public dollars.
Government should not be picking winners and losers. Giving tax breaks and subsidies to Disney so they can stay afloat is horrible. Hats off to the LA times for exposing this, the people are waking up and are tired of big government and corporate America robbing the poor and middle class blind.
So this what the serious movie reviewers do in such cases:
They ignore it. Sometimes it's fun to take down a bad movies, such as the usual big warmongering patriotic Hollywood blockbusters or the latest fascist superhero fad or genocidal fanfare. Sometimes it's necessary education. But mostly you ignore it.
Those blockbuster movies only live by the advance hype and star power. After the first weekend and the first serious reviews are in, they usually go down very fast, that's why they take the Spielberg/Jaws route, starting in >3000 theaters, best worldwide, and leave them after the first or 2nd week.
If it's really bad, no advance screenings to the previews are allowed for certain movies when they don’t expect the reviews to be very positive. Although studios often give the flimsy excuse that a particular movie was intended only to please the fans, rather than snooty critics, most of the time this is a strong indication that a movie is a piece of crap. They just want to give themselves a chance to make money on the opening weekend before word gets out about how bad it really is.
Disney is one of the worst offenders in the business, besides the Weinsteins, Relativity and New Line Cinema.
This is also the best sign to check if it's worthwhile. When there's only marketing hype or official press clippings but no serious review, the movie is mostly crap. No one writes about it.
Pass a Constitutional amendment that states that corporations are not people. Then start passing laws that restrict the free speech of corporations and then pass more laws stating that money is speech. Then there can be fine tuned laws stating the max that a person can give to a candidate and start forcing all organizations that have anything to do with politics to register and state who is giving them money. Eliminate all anonymous donations.
A culture of expectations that businesses behave ethically and do not bribe their governments. Campaign finance reform. Powerful government regulators that actually scare companies. A department of justice, for example, that observes this and decides to nationalize Disney, break it up, or delete it from the universe using existing anti-bribery or anti-trust laws. A state of California that decides to prosecute executives or at least threaten them with jailtime. Maybe send SWAT teams to raid their mansions and shoot their dogs, like they do with suspected poor black pot dealers.
The worst punishment any company receives for bribing, stealing from, defrauding, or poisoning the public is a slap on the wrist that is outweighed by the profit they make committing crimes. We need to be comfortable with devastating corporate punishments (company-destroying fines, mandatory company breakups, nationalization, jailtime for executives, asset seizure) to have any effect at all. What did we learn from Equifax? Don't worry about the security of people's data, there is basically zero real consequence to posting sensitive data on every citizen in plaintext on the Internet. Money spent on security is a waste, an objectively bad business decision. That's what our government and regulatory bodies have told us. And it's what the market has told us as well, but we already expected that -- we expect the market to choose evil when given the choice, every time. That is its function.
Right now, a CEO cannot say to their board "Yes, the cost/benefit analysis and market forces suggest we should bribe the city officials and steal money from the taxpayers, but we'd go to jail so we can't" because it is not true. All they can say is "it is morally wrong" which does nothing except get that uppity CEO fired so somebody who really cares about profits can be brought on.
[+] [-] hammock|8 years ago|reply
Despite not technically being an independent paper (Are there any anymore?) I have long admired the LA Times as one of, if not the only, US paper left that does what seems like independent journalism and is not afraid to call out stories everyone else is ignoring.
[+] [-] hxegon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] libria|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zitterbewegung|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] williamle8300|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IvyMike|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oddevan|8 years ago|reply
[edit: here's the note: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-holiday-movie-pre... ]
[+] [-] munk-a|8 years ago|reply
It'd be fitting if the stink of this move clung to their creative productions.
[+] [-] clairity|8 years ago|reply
they also talked about the blacklisting on friday as well on filmweek: http://www.scpr.org/programs/filmweek/
[+] [-] eduren|8 years ago|reply
Wow, I hadn't heard this was a possibility until now. I sure am looking forward to seeing which of the many {m/b}illionaires ends up winning the presidency in 2020! How about we just cut out the middlemen and make it a big national bidding war. Most money offered gets to be president.
[+] [-] rs999gti|8 years ago|reply
But even that doesn't work. In 2016 for the US presidency, Hillary Clinton's campaign had $790M USD versus Donald Trump's $408M USD.
She had double the money 'to buy the presidency' and she still lost.
https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16
[+] [-] _jal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] banku_brougham|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplnt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzakrajs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] porfirium|8 years ago|reply
Didn't seem to work very well for Hillary... (I know this sounds like a cheap shot, but it completely breaks down your argument)
[+] [-] davidf18|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] banku_brougham|8 years ago|reply
I really want to know: what are the incentives? Are there secret payments?
I remember Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was convicted for receiving porch renovations, and his legislative actions were worth billions to the industry providing gifts in kind. It doesn’t make sense, perhaps we are not discovering the true payments.
[+] [-] polutropos|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/disney-la-times....
[+] [-] the_gastropod|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Udo_Schmitz|8 years ago|reply
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/journalists-boycott-di...
https://www.thewrap.com/critics-denounce-disney-blackout-la-...
[+] [-] guelo|8 years ago|reply
http://flavorwire.com/611229/an-editorial-note-re-disney-and...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2017/11/06/w...
https://www.avclub.com/the-a-v-club-will-no-longer-attend-di...
[+] [-] Udo_Schmitz|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/disney-la-times....
[+] [-] kelukelugames|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c0nducktr|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerstmann#Termination_fro...
[+] [-] azernik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LastZactionHero|8 years ago|reply
https://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-journalism-1743526293
Not exactly local government corrupted by a major corporation here, but yeah studios blacklist for reports they don't like.
[+] [-] adamnemecek|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt_wulfeck|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ProAm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logfromblammo|8 years ago|reply
Four critics' groups have already declared a boycott on Disney with respect to their awards presentations, explicitly citing the LA Times ban as their reason.
[+] [-] grandalf|8 years ago|reply
BTW TFA caused my laptop to heat up with all the ads.
[+] [-] cabaalis|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] turc1656|8 years ago|reply
Wow. That's infuriating. The people of Anaheim should be irate. A total of $1.2 billion essentially donated to Disney over however many years those bonds are for. I wonder if anyone violated any laws to make that deal happen...
[+] [-] michaelt|8 years ago|reply
Journalists that participated in the cover-up got access to his film premieres, parties at award ceremonies, interviews with celebrities and so on. Turns out that was enough to get every entertainment journalist to cover up his crimes for years.
Apparently people in Hollywood don't see any problem with this!
[+] [-] bsder|8 years ago|reply
I suspect the bigger problem is that there are so few honest people involved in the business that you would have to shut down if you broke off association with everybody doing shady things in Hollywood.
While I'm pleased to see Weinstein going down, I keep scratching my head about "We know that there are people in Hollywood doing far worse things. Why the focus on Weinstein in particular? Something smells kind of fishy ..."
[+] [-] r00fus|8 years ago|reply
Probably something done a lot in politics.
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PatientTrades|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|8 years ago|reply
They ignore it. Sometimes it's fun to take down a bad movies, such as the usual big warmongering patriotic Hollywood blockbusters or the latest fascist superhero fad or genocidal fanfare. Sometimes it's necessary education. But mostly you ignore it.
Those blockbuster movies only live by the advance hype and star power. After the first weekend and the first serious reviews are in, they usually go down very fast, that's why they take the Spielberg/Jaws route, starting in >3000 theaters, best worldwide, and leave them after the first or 2nd week.
If it's really bad, no advance screenings to the previews are allowed for certain movies when they don’t expect the reviews to be very positive. Although studios often give the flimsy excuse that a particular movie was intended only to please the fans, rather than snooty critics, most of the time this is a strong indication that a movie is a piece of crap. They just want to give themselves a chance to make money on the opening weekend before word gets out about how bad it really is. Disney is one of the worst offenders in the business, besides the Weinsteins, Relativity and New Line Cinema.
This is also the best sign to check if it's worthwhile. When there's only marketing hype or official press clippings but no serious review, the movie is mostly crap. No one writes about it.
[+] [-] Friedduck|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/disney-la-times....
[+] [-] petraeus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jazoom|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamnemecek|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mullen|8 years ago|reply
It is highly unlikely this is going to happen.
[+] [-] wfo|8 years ago|reply
The worst punishment any company receives for bribing, stealing from, defrauding, or poisoning the public is a slap on the wrist that is outweighed by the profit they make committing crimes. We need to be comfortable with devastating corporate punishments (company-destroying fines, mandatory company breakups, nationalization, jailtime for executives, asset seizure) to have any effect at all. What did we learn from Equifax? Don't worry about the security of people's data, there is basically zero real consequence to posting sensitive data on every citizen in plaintext on the Internet. Money spent on security is a waste, an objectively bad business decision. That's what our government and regulatory bodies have told us. And it's what the market has told us as well, but we already expected that -- we expect the market to choose evil when given the choice, every time. That is its function.
Right now, a CEO cannot say to their board "Yes, the cost/benefit analysis and market forces suggest we should bribe the city officials and steal money from the taxpayers, but we'd go to jail so we can't" because it is not true. All they can say is "it is morally wrong" which does nothing except get that uppity CEO fired so somebody who really cares about profits can be brought on.