Disney Bans LA Times Writers From Advance Screenings In Response To Negative Articles
from the charm-offensive dept
Once again, Disney has decided to sacrifice goodwill for brand perception. Not content to limit itself to sending C&Ds to kids' birthday party performers, Disney's latest act of self-savagery has resulted in backlash from several top journalistic entities.
Back in September, the LA Times dug into Disney's supremely cosy relationship with Anaheim's government -- one that has produced years of subsidies, incentives, and tax shelters for the entertainment giant. Disney wasn't happy with the report, so it responded the way any rational company would: it issued a statement stating the articles were full of errors and claimed the LA Times "showed a complete disregard for basic journalistic standards." (Despite these claims, Disney has yet to ask for corrections to the LA Times' investigative articles.)
Then it responded the way any irrational company would: by locking LA Times reviewers out of advance movie screenings.
The Los Angeles Times had made Disney’s blackout public in a note to readers last week that explained why no feature articles about Disney movies appeared in its 2017 holiday movie preview section. Disney also did not give The Times early access to “Thor: Ragnarok” so that it could prepare a review in time for its Friday opening.
This resulted in the sort of thing Disney should have expected. Critics groups and several large newspapers showed their support for the LA Times by refusing to attend Disney movie screenings. The critics groups also announced they would not consider any Disney films for awards until the ban was lifted. But what likely hurt Disney the most was the show of support from powerful Hollywood figures, one of which -- Ava DuVernay -- has a movie slated to be released by Disney next March.
Thanks to the swift, strong backlash, Disney has now rescinded its ban. But you won't be hearing Disney admit to being wrong. Instead, it's still trying to portray the LA Times as the sole transgressor in this debacle.
“We’ve had productive discussions with the newly installed leadership at The Los Angeles Times regarding our specific concerns, and as a result, we’ve agreed to restore access to advance screenings for their film critics,” Disney said in a statement.
Yep. Nothing to do with the backlash prompted by its bullshit move. Instead, it's all about a recent regime change and some "productive discussions." And the entertainment giant has nothing to say about its stupidly punitive actions resulting in more attention being drawn to the LA Times articles it disagrees with. There's not much that's more counterproductive than attempting to punish news outlets for delivering news. Even if the news outlet is in the wrong, there's nothing to be gained from refusing to be the adult in the room.
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Filed Under: anaheim, censorship, corporate bad behavior, corruption, movie reviews, reviews
Companies: disney, la times
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Old news
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Apologies
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Re: Apologies
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Not if you're the president.
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I guess Disney figured out that no press at all could hurt their bottom line.
They need the nice reviews to get people to want to spend way to much for their feet to stick to the floor and their ears to ring for 3 hours after.
Playing the we didn't like how you reported on what we are doing, so we're taking our ball & its gonna hurt you!!! didn't work out how they planned.
You have to take the good with the bad, and if you don't like reporting on the bad... don't do bad things maybe?
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The media has more than enough reason to do this as Disney has not learnt there lesson obviously taking responsibility for there actions and this type of case will most definitely happen again in a few years when people have forgotten this story.
What grinds my goat is that Disney is supposed to be a family business yet they are amongst the worst when it comes to families.
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The first amendment only applies to the government.
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Yes. And other private companies have the right to retaliate by boycotting Disney. Other papers can choose not to attend pre-screenings. Critics' associations can choose to disqualify Disney movies from awards considerations.
Who said anything about the First Amendment?
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Double standard? Got it.
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Or, you're just peddling disingenuous "both sides" nonsense.
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It's a double standard for anyone to criticize Disney for criticizing the Times. It's pretty clear whose speech is the only speech which should be protected*, for some reason.
*In this case, "protected": Accept their, and only their, actions and speech and shut up.
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That is a bit one-sided. Disney started the row by trying to force LA Times to submit to their demands.
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What comments? What stories? Who do you mean by "we"? Who are you accusing of having a double-standard?
In summary, what the fuck are you talking about?
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The LA Times reports about a "too cozy" relationship between Disney, Anaheim, and other city governments that may or may not be corruption.
Instead of debating the story or presenting evidence to the contrary or even suing for libel, Disney decided to be a child and say "You can't review our movies!".
(I'm assuming The LA Times has good research and legal departments that cleared the story to prevent Disney from suing for libel.)
Sure, Disney has every right to ban whomever it wants, but if the issue is about an article in a newspaper, then at least be adult about things and explain why the article is wrong. Then the issue would get more coverage and Disney could explain their side of things.
Unless the story is true and they don't want to explain anything... hmm...
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I >love< superheroes, adore comics, and am a big marvel fan. (I like DC plenty too, but tend to prefer Marvel for most things.)...
Only now the success or failure of franchises and properties I adore aren't reliant on the people who I know and trust to deliver... they are tarnished by the actions of a megaconglomerate that frequently makes horrible decisions for the sake of pure greed.
I'm not saying Marvel never did anything deplorable in persuit of things like IP protection... frankly I've heard that there were legal threats and battles over a trademark of the term 'superhero' which is absolutely stupid...
But I've seen this happen way to often with video game publishers. They see a group being successful, absorb that group, make a ton of changes and demands and PR disasters, and basically destroy that group!
In short.... I hate that Disney owns Marvel and a movie I am really looking forward to is having it's chances in the box-office screwed with by it's parent company.
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This is the cancer that unbridled greed from shareholders has brought to capitalism and I see no easy way of solving it.
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Dear Disney
That does not mean that I won't see any of your properties, because I won't necessarily preclude watching some of your productions that are handed to me or are available on someone else's video reproduction equipment.
Just like you treated the Brothers Grimm, the whole concept of copyright as written in the US Constitution and likely other abuses.
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I hadn't heard of this Anaheim corruption before today. Good of Disney to bring it back to the spotlight.
The stated concern is that Disney will direct more money to non-Anaheim parks if Anaheim doesn't help them. I don't believe that. Disney's got a shitload of cash and they know the improvements will only increase their profits. And they're greedy, so why not upgrade all the parks and get all the money?
Their discontent with Anaheim goes back a long way though. There, they've bought about half the government, but in Florida they straight-up formed their own government, as the article notes.
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I too was banned for negative reviews!
I don't strain to find these similarities, they're obvious from the wronged side.
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Re: I too was banned for negative reviews!
What they might see is the IP of your exit node, which is also the possible IP of much spam, and if an IP address has been blocked (which I doubt, though the spam filter might think differently) it is the IP address of the exit node. Try a different exit node, and if you can find one, one that spammers don't use, or start your own.
Further, it is not likely that it is negative reviews that causes anyone to filter you, it is much more likely your insults, lack of logic, and misinformed points of view, the results of which are done by the community via flagging, which means your comments are minimized but still readable. And you know all that, but still claim otherwise.
I do enjoy your butt hurt though.
BTW, TOR has a new vulnerability, announced last week. You should update.
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Re: Re: I too was banned for negative reviews!
The person you're replying to said their home address got banned, and now they're using Tor (to work around the ban, likely). The actual unrealistic implication is that Techdirt read a negative review somewhere, figured out the IP address that posted it, and banned it from Techdirt.
That was Tor Browser.
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... nope, still a windmill
Keeping telling yourself that's the reason, maybe one day you'll believe it yourself if you don't already, because I highly doubt you're convincing anyone else.
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Re: I too was banned for negative reviews!
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Re: I too was banned for negative reviews!
I think if you had anything of value to offer instead of rage-commenting on every singe article without offering any additional argumentation, they might have. Especially if they weren't still confronted with your comments anyway, which mostly amount to: "I am being censored boohooo!!!"
If I thought it would help I would advice you to engage in the hardest of all activities, self reflection.
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So what's new?
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