7 ms·

The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking out the LA Times, but surprise surprise, it's perfectly OK for them to use the sa

by zaroth 9y ago

The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking out the LA Times, but surprise surprise, it's perfectly OK for them to use the same tactics because, you know, they're the good guys. Even if it's true, I am very suspicious when someone tries to sell me that these kinds of tactics are "right when I use them but wrong when you do".

epistasis 9y ago
Yes, that's why it's completely inappropriate to put a kidnapper in prison, right?
- zaroth 9y ago
  So the newspapers blacklisting Disney from awards consideration is, in your mind, akin to trial by jury, conviction, and lawful sentencing? I think you make my point for me. Arguably they were justified in retaliating, but it's clearly a mudfight, and the newspapers had no problem getting into the mud with Disney and flexing their muscle. I don't see any high ground here.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    If you say journalists were justified in blocking Disney from awards consideration over Disney blocking a newspaper who reported on their actions during the Anaheim City Council elections, then you kinda disproved your theory that there isn't any high ground.
    - zaroth 9y ago
      "Arguably" as in -- the argument could be made. It's not an argument I would personally make, I was trying to identify with epistasis' position. IMO the high ground is fairly simple; You report on the fact that Disney is retaliating for a story they don't like and allow the Streisand effect to carry you to swift and decisive victory, without having to resort to extortion yourself.
      - bgun 9y ago
        Public opinion should never be used as a weapon, least of all by journalists. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, or that the feeling of schadenfreude when it does isn't justfied, but what you are suggesting amounts to an expectation that the public will do your job for you.
        zaroth 9y ago
        I think in a round about way that "the public doing your job for you" is actually the fucking definition of journalism! I don't know if I need to explain that further or if it makes sense on its own. But I'm thinking along the lines of -- Journalists report the story, they don't make the story. The public, by reading their story, does the "job" of turning hard-hitting reporting into justice. Not the news organization itself.
      - mattmanser 9y ago
        The newspapers can criticise Disney's business actions while simultaneously praising their artistic output. It's different parts of the newspaper, different aims on informing the public. That's fair and unbiased and the job of a journalist. While Disney attempts to punish the commercial arm of a newspaper by attacking their entertainment division, because of the actions of investigative journalists in a different field. Disney is resorting to extortion, the newspaper is simply doing their job.
        zaroth 9y ago
        I agree Disney absolutely resorted to extortion, and I agree the newspaper absolutely was simply doing it's job. Now tell me... what happened next? If you consider it deeply, does it make you feel at all uncomfortable? Or because the "good guys won" are we just supposed to be giddy that Disney got rightly put in their place by the MSM?
        JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        > Or because the "good guys won" are we just supposed to be giddy that Disney got rightly put in their place by the MSM? Newspapers blocking Disney from a private function, from which Disney benefits but does not depend, is an asymmetric response to Disney blocking a newspaper's film screeners from screening its films, access on which the screeners depend. When we add in that Disney moved first and in response to truthful reporting to its detriment and in the public interest, it's pretty clear that this private dispute is perfectly appropriate.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    That’s not the standard that we hold civil matters to. Integrity is essential to the business of news reporting. Creating a culture where it’s assumed that only well behaved critics get to review movies undermines all newspapers and media.
    - zaroth 9y ago
      I completely agree! I don't think I said or implied anything to the contrary.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  You could, for example, very well argue that it is exploitative and completely inappropriate to put anyone in an US¹ prison. ¹ And many others, this is just an easy example.
Analemma_ 9y ago
So what should the newspapers have done instead? Lie down and take it, because otherwise “we’d be just as bad”? This widespread reflex to go “both sides are equally bad!”, even when such equivocation is flatly absurd, is the thing that makes me most weep for the future of the human race.
- zaroth 9y ago
  No, that's not what they should have done. If they stood by their reporting, the response to violence or bullying doesn't always have to be more violence or bullying. It's actually possible to stand by your reporting, and continue to pursue a story, without resorting to blackmail. Both sides demonstrated their moral flexibility for using extortion to get what they wanted. That much is clear. What makes me "weep" is the abundance of logical fallacies deployed against my stated suspicion of the tactics used by a very powerful group to bring Disney to heel. Maybe they needed to be brought to heel, but I dislike the methods and again I am deeply suspicious of the coordinated exercise of power which was on display here.
  - BEEdwards 9y ago
    Not reviewing a movie based on a prescreeining isn't "bullying" by any stretch of the imagination.
    - zaroth 9y ago
      I agree completely. You may have missed, from TFA: On Tuesday, members of 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 denounced Disney’s blackout of The Los Angeles Times. Each group voted to disqualify Disney’s movies from year-end award consideration unless the blackout was “publicly rescinded.” If I'm not mistaken, those awards are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Disney. It seemed like a significant escalation to me! EDIT: I was an order of magnitude off in the estimated value of winning a half dozen Academy Awards.
s73ver_ 9y ago
So, we should all just ignore that Disney is attempting to use its might in order to completely bypass freedom of the press, and end oversight of what it's doing in the city council elections in Anaheim?
- zaroth 9y ago
  No I wouldn't suggest ignoring it, but I also would propose it's possible to respond in a way that's highly effective but yet not itself extortion. EDIT: Might I add -- can you please explain why you say Disney "is attempting to use its might in order to completely bypass freedom of the press, and end oversight of what it's doing in the city council elections in Anaheim"? At what point did Disney even come close to trying to take down the LA Times reporting, or imprison someone for reporting it, or somehow stop the oversight from happening? Clearly by trying to retaliate they only gave the story more legs. There was never a question of LA Times retracting their story. And "freedom of the press" doesn't mean that companies can't restrict access to their own products in response to negative coverage. Upthread someone mentioned Apple did something very similar with iPhone X. Companies provide favorable access to favorable journalists all the time. To me, it was the MSM retaliation which raised an eyebrow. And again, maybe they did it for good cause, but it was eyebrow-raising [to me] none the less.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    What about a parent who tells their kid they can't have dessert unless they eat their vegetables, is that extortion too?
    - zaroth 9y ago
      So your position is that the news organizations are Disney's parent and legal guardian - and just looking out for their health and well being? Or less literally, you think the news organizations simply had to threaten Disney with potentially billions (nix that, it's actually just hundreds of millions) of dollars of lost revenue by being excluded from the awards ceremonies in order to restore LA Times access to pre-screenings. It doesn't concern you at all that they would collectively make that threat / wield that might? And this is all going on the assumption that the original LA Times reporting on Disney shenanigans in Anaheim was rock-solid and beyond reproach. Which of course I'm sure it was. Even still I remain suspicious when the MSM bands together to effectively threaten losses of hundreds of millions in revenue [1] to a company which they think is misbehaving. P.S. I feel like I'm in a weird rhetorical bubble here... I'd actually love it for someone to tell me exactly why I'm wrong without lobbing logical fallacies at me! [1] - http://www.businessinsider.com/oscarnomics-2013-how-much-is-oscar-really-worth-2013-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/oscarnomics-2013-how-much-is-...
tdb7893 9y ago
It sounds like you are saying that context doesn't matter at all for ethics. That's a pretty bold claim
- zaroth 9y ago
  It certainly would be a bold claim if I made it. Why would I engage with hypothetical positions which I didn't take?
  - ajkjk 9y ago
    Well, you definitely wrote an opinion that selectively ignored context in order to make something reasonable sound unreasonable, which indicates your willingness to selectively ignore context to evaluate ethics, hence the reading that you endorse that as a general behavior...
    - zaroth 9y ago
      The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking out the LA Times That is an accurate portrayal of the context, is it not? Would you have been happier if I wrote; The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking out the LA Times in response to their hard hitting story about Disney. It's a mouthful, and doesn't change at all my following statement as I see it.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        That is a fairly inaccurate, to the point of being dishonest, portrayal of the context. That last part, in the italics, that you claim makes no difference, is a huge difference in context here.
        zaroth 9y ago
        It wasn't my intent to misrepresent the context. As a comment on TFA I read TFA and I assume you read TFA. But it's telling that you think... the threat to blacklist Disney from awards, unless they retract their blacklist of the LA Times, is justified, not because they blacklisted the LA Times, but because of why they blacklisted the LA Times. Namely, in response to the LA Times' piece critical of Disney. So, a particularly violent response is justified by the MSM in this case, because Disney is retaliating against a news story which so far is being held up as factual. If they want to retaliate against a newspaper's dutiful and factual investigative reporting, then it's OK for the MSM to hit them where it hurts. I actually get that people think this is justified and that the MSM actually did one right by defending themselves like this. I personally take no joy watching powerful interests try to out-leverage each other. A muscle exercised will be a muscle more quickly used and relied on in the future. I don't enjoy the mudfight and don't think either side comes out entirely clean. (My last comment on this topic)
s73ver_ 9y ago
Another thing you're either missing or deliberately omitting is that the LA Times didn't disqualify Disney from awards. The rest of the industry, upon hearing that Disney did this because of reporting on their actions with the city of Anaheim, did this because trying to silence journalism like that is objectively wrong.

by zaroth 9y ago

epistasis 9y ago

Yes, that's why it's completely inappropriate to put a kidnapper in prison, right?

zaroth 9y ago
So the newspapers blacklisting Disney from awards consideration is, in your mind, akin to trial by jury, conviction, and lawful sentencing? I think you make my point for me. Arguably they were justified in retaliating, but it's clearly a mudfight, and the newspapers had no problem getting into the mud with Disney and flexing their muscle. I don't see any high ground here.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  If you say journalists were justified in blocking Disney from awards consideration over Disney blocking a newspaper who reported on their actions during the Anaheim City Council elections, then you kinda disproved your theory that there isn't any high ground.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    "Arguably" as in -- the argument could be made. It's not an argument I would personally make, I was trying to identify with epistasis' position. IMO the high ground is fairly simple; You report on the fact that Disney is retaliating for a story they don't like and allow the Streisand effect to carry you to swift and decisive victory, without having to resort to extortion yourself.
    - bgun 9y ago
      Public opinion should never be used as a weapon, least of all by journalists. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, or that the feeling of schadenfreude when it does isn't justfied, but what you are suggesting amounts to an expectation that the public will do your job for you.
      - zaroth 9y ago
        I think in a round about way that "the public doing your job for you" is actually the fucking definition of journalism! I don't know if I need to explain that further or if it makes sense on its own. But I'm thinking along the lines of -- Journalists report the story, they don't make the story. The public, by reading their story, does the "job" of turning hard-hitting reporting into justice. Not the news organization itself.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      The newspapers can criticise Disney's business actions while simultaneously praising their artistic output. It's different parts of the newspaper, different aims on informing the public. That's fair and unbiased and the job of a journalist. While Disney attempts to punish the commercial arm of a newspaper by attacking their entertainment division, because of the actions of investigative journalists in a different field. Disney is resorting to extortion, the newspaper is simply doing their job.
      - zaroth 9y ago
        I agree Disney absolutely resorted to extortion, and I agree the newspaper absolutely was simply doing it's job. Now tell me... what happened next? If you consider it deeply, does it make you feel at all uncomfortable? Or because the "good guys won" are we just supposed to be giddy that Disney got rightly put in their place by the MSM?
        JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        > Or because the "good guys won" are we just supposed to be giddy that Disney got rightly put in their place by the MSM? Newspapers blocking Disney from a private function, from which Disney benefits but does not depend, is an asymmetric response to Disney blocking a newspaper's film screeners from screening its films, access on which the screeners depend. When we add in that Disney moved first and in response to truthful reporting to its detriment and in the public interest, it's pretty clear that this private dispute is perfectly appropriate.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  That’s not the standard that we hold civil matters to. Integrity is essential to the business of news reporting. Creating a culture where it’s assumed that only well behaved critics get to review movies undermines all newspapers and media.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    I completely agree! I don't think I said or implied anything to the contrary.
ryanlol 9y ago
You could, for example, very well argue that it is exploitative and completely inappropriate to put anyone in an US¹ prison. ¹ And many others, this is just an easy example.

Analemma_ 9y ago

So what should the newspapers have done instead? Lie down and take it, because otherwise “we’d be just as bad”? This widespread reflex to go “both sides are equally bad!”, even when such equivocation is flatly absurd, is the thing that makes me most weep for the future of the human race.

zaroth 9y ago
No, that's not what they should have done. If they stood by their reporting, the response to violence or bullying doesn't always have to be more violence or bullying. It's actually possible to stand by your reporting, and continue to pursue a story, without resorting to blackmail. Both sides demonstrated their moral flexibility for using extortion to get what they wanted. That much is clear. What makes me "weep" is the abundance of logical fallacies deployed against my stated suspicion of the tactics used by a very powerful group to bring Disney to heel. Maybe they needed to be brought to heel, but I dislike the methods and again I am deeply suspicious of the coordinated exercise of power which was on display here.
- BEEdwards 9y ago
  Not reviewing a movie based on a prescreeining isn't "bullying" by any stretch of the imagination.
  - zaroth 9y ago
    I agree completely. You may have missed, from TFA: On Tuesday, members of 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 denounced Disney’s blackout of The Los Angeles Times. Each group voted to disqualify Disney’s movies from year-end award consideration unless the blackout was “publicly rescinded.” If I'm not mistaken, those awards are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Disney. It seemed like a significant escalation to me! EDIT: I was an order of magnitude off in the estimated value of winning a half dozen Academy Awards.

s73ver_ 9y ago

So, we should all just ignore that Disney is attempting to use its might in order to completely bypass freedom of the press, and end oversight of what it's doing in the city council elections in Anaheim?

zaroth 9y ago
No I wouldn't suggest ignoring it, but I also would propose it's possible to respond in a way that's highly effective but yet not itself extortion. EDIT: Might I add -- can you please explain why you say Disney "is attempting to use its might in order to completely bypass freedom of the press, and end oversight of what it's doing in the city council elections in Anaheim"? At what point did Disney even come close to trying to take down the LA Times reporting, or imprison someone for reporting it, or somehow stop the oversight from happening? Clearly by trying to retaliate they only gave the story more legs. There was never a question of LA Times retracting their story. And "freedom of the press" doesn't mean that companies can't restrict access to their own products in response to negative coverage. Upthread someone mentioned Apple did something very similar with iPhone X. Companies provide favorable access to favorable journalists all the time. To me, it was the MSM retaliation which raised an eyebrow. And again, maybe they did it for good cause, but it was eyebrow-raising [to me] none the less.
- rhizome 9y ago
  What about a parent who tells their kid they can't have dessert unless they eat their vegetables, is that extortion too?
  - zaroth 9y ago
    So your position is that the news organizations are Disney's parent and legal guardian - and just looking out for their health and well being? Or less literally, you think the news organizations simply had to threaten Disney with potentially billions (nix that, it's actually just hundreds of millions) of dollars of lost revenue by being excluded from the awards ceremonies in order to restore LA Times access to pre-screenings. It doesn't concern you at all that they would collectively make that threat / wield that might? And this is all going on the assumption that the original LA Times reporting on Disney shenanigans in Anaheim was rock-solid and beyond reproach. Which of course I'm sure it was. Even still I remain suspicious when the MSM bands together to effectively threaten losses of hundreds of millions in revenue [1] to a company which they think is misbehaving. P.S. I feel like I'm in a weird rhetorical bubble here... I'd actually love it for someone to tell me exactly why I'm wrong without lobbing logical fallacies at me! [1] - http://www.businessinsider.com/oscarnomics-2013-how-much-is-oscar-really-worth-2013-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/oscarnomics-2013-how-much-is-...

tdb7893 9y ago

It sounds like you are saying that context doesn't matter at all for ethics. That's a pretty bold claim

zaroth 9y ago
It certainly would be a bold claim if I made it. Why would I engage with hypothetical positions which I didn't take?
- ajkjk 9y ago
  Well, you definitely wrote an opinion that selectively ignored context in order to make something reasonable sound unreasonable, which indicates your willingness to selectively ignore context to evaluate ethics, hence the reading that you endorse that as a general behavior...
  - zaroth 9y ago
    The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking out the LA Times That is an accurate portrayal of the context, is it not? Would you have been happier if I wrote; The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking out the LA Times in response to their hard hitting story about Disney. It's a mouthful, and doesn't change at all my following statement as I see it.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      That is a fairly inaccurate, to the point of being dishonest, portrayal of the context. That last part, in the italics, that you claim makes no difference, is a huge difference in context here.
      - zaroth 9y ago
        It wasn't my intent to misrepresent the context. As a comment on TFA I read TFA and I assume you read TFA. But it's telling that you think... the threat to blacklist Disney from awards, unless they retract their blacklist of the LA Times, is justified, not because they blacklisted the LA Times, but because of why they blacklisted the LA Times. Namely, in response to the LA Times' piece critical of Disney. So, a particularly violent response is justified by the MSM in this case, because Disney is retaliating against a news story which so far is being held up as factual. If they want to retaliate against a newspaper's dutiful and factual investigative reporting, then it's OK for the MSM to hit them where it hurts. I actually get that people think this is justified and that the MSM actually did one right by defending themselves like this. I personally take no joy watching powerful interests try to out-leverage each other. A muscle exercised will be a muscle more quickly used and relied on in the future. I don't enjoy the mudfight and don't think either side comes out entirely clean. (My last comment on this topic)

s73ver_ 9y ago

Another thing you're either missing or deliberately omitting is that the LA Times didn't disqualify Disney from awards. The rest of the industry, upon hearing that Disney did this because of reporting on their actions with the city of Anaheim, did this because trying to silence journalism like that is objectively wrong.