In September, the LA Times ran a two-part series on the tax and other benefits the Disney corporation managed to extract in Anaheim, California (9/24/17), and its efforts to influence city council elections (9/26/17). In a particularly hamfisted retaliatory move, Disney (though it didn’t call for any actual corrections) barred LA Timesreporters from advance press screenings for its movies.
Journalists took umbrage: The Washington Post‘s Alyssa Rosenberg (11/6/17) said she’d boycott the screenings until Disney backed down. The New York Times agreed, issuing a statement saying, “A powerful company punishing a news organization for a story they do not like” is a “dangerous precedent and not at all in the public interest.” The National Society of Film Critics and others disqualified Disney from awards (Variety, 11/7/17).
This week, citing “productive discussions” with LA Times leadership, Disneyrescinded the ban. “Journalistic solidarity,” claimed the Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple (11/7/17), served notice to Disney and “all prospective bullies: We media types sometimes do live up to the glorious principles that we mouth at panel discussions.”
It was indeed a commendable action. So. Maybe now they’ve got this solidarity thing going, with the glorious principles and the concern about the powerful punishing people for stories they don’t like, corporate media could stretch the idea enough to see where solidarity is needed on issues perhaps even more pressing than whether you got your Thor: Ragnorok review before opening night or a day after.