There have been a lot of people pointing out how lazy the media have been in relation to reporting this case.
These days my list of truly reliable news sources starts and ends with AP and Reuters.
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Yeah, corporations do this a lot. They may prefer one particular candidate over another for various reasons, but they ALWAYS prefer that EVERYONE in a legislative body has a positive opinion of their company.
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You know, I keep thinking about how great it would have been if Iger had been brought in to advise Chapek on how to deal with this at the beginning. I think the general consensus is that Chapek would rather hang from his own handmade noose than make that call unfortunately.
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It is lazy, but more incomplete than inaccurate. For the most part, the biggest effect for both Disney and the surrounding jurisdiction is on taxes. There are also the constraints of crafting a headline to consider, in that “special district” really isn’t as easily grasped as “special tax status.” To my surprise, our local teevee “political” reporter did a pretty good job with the story last night.
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It becomes hard to argue Disney isn’t getting specifically targeted though when he makes comments like these:
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FFS
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I saw the NYT headline and thought much the same. It seemed a very superficial view of the actual issues in play here. Maybe the article was better, but they wouldn’t let me see it, as I had already exhausted my freebies.
My general understanding is Disney is actually paying more in taxes than they normally would and in return getting autonomy effectively. When they want to build something/move something RCID is doing the inspections/permits which streamlines the process. I guess I may just be interpreting “special” as “beneficial” on the tax front, but it seems with the dissolution, DIS will actually pay less…
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I don’t think Eisner was that creative. He did have a pretty good head for picking which projects would be successful. He was something of an old-fashioned movie man who could still work well in the more modern corporate studio environment, and he had a flair for the theatrical which Disney needed more than most other studios.
What he was not good at was staying the course when projects started to get expensive. He would start soiling his personal shorts when the bills starting coming in and wouldn’t hesitate to scale back a project midway. The archetypical example of this was cutting Beastly Kingdom from Animal Kingdom, only to have the talent go to Universal, who created Islands of Adventure with what amounted to the same blueprints.
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The phrase “whistling past the graveyard” comes to mind…
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This became his pattern after DLP and after Frank Wells died. Before that, Wells was great at keeping budgets in check and the two of them together probably made the best leadership team since Walt and Roy.
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You beat me to it. Frank Wells:Michael Eisner::Roy O. Disney:Walt Disney.
EDIT: Like Roy, it wasn’t all choppity chop chop with Frank Wells. He was able to keep projects on track and not automatically lose his head if things were going over budget. Knowing when to hold 'em and knowing when to fold 'em, as it were…
Eisner did seem pretty self-aware though, understanding the whole enterprise was show business and not curing cancer. He was unabashedly enthusiastic about Disney in a way Iger never was. Iger never seemed comfortable in his own skin, to me.
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Thanks for posting this. Very interesting read to say the least. Its obviously only the top of the 2nd inning right now in this bizarre struggle. Sure hope DeSantis didn’t hurt himself too badly patting himself on the back so darn much … maybe Disney did pick the right guy to have fight with. 
Glad I don’t live in Florida.
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My law school copyright professor explained the Bono Act thus:
“Basically, you don’t F with The Mouse.”
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Yeah, I think my disappointment was that the whole article was lazy - sorry it is behind a paywall. I’ve seen a lot of good stories coming out of the local stations.
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My issue was the headline made it seem like the district was nothing but a tax shelter. There’s a lot more involved than just that, and reporting like that is lazy in my opinion.
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Someone needs to make a save RCID t-shirt.
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Totally agree!
The NYT article was not worth using a feebie on. Nothing new to add and limitednon details.
As you and another user pointed out, Eisner needed Wells to ground him. Eisner may not have been very creative as an artist, but he was an incredibly passionate creative executive for the company. He built more parks, and resorts than any other CEO, had a passion for architecture and theming that rivaled Walt. And turned around the film studio and animation department.
The wheels started falling for him on the creative side when he had to juggle the business side and be creative because he didn’t have the stomach for making those financial calls (on top of being extremely unhealthy after Wells passed).
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