Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, July 5th, 2023
David Zaslav fails the "Streisand Effect" test
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, July 5th, 2023.
DAVID ZASLAV FAILS THE 'STREISAND EFFECT' TEST
There aren't any report cards that judge how well a public figure deals with bad publicity. But generally speaking, if you and/or your representatives handle a situation so badly that people attach your name to the example of what not to do, you've probably failed the test.
In 2003, Barbra Streisand filed a lawsuit asking for $50 million in damages for violation of privacy. She was unhappy that photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com had taken an aerial photograph of her beachfront mansion as part of a publicly available database of 12,000 California coastline photographs that were intended to document coastal erosion. The lawsuit was dismissed and Streisand was ordered to pay $177,000 to Adelman to cover his legal fees.
The unintended consequence of the lawsuit was that it had the exact opposite effect that Streisand had apparently hoped for by filing the lawsuit. Prior to the lawsuit being filed, the photo of her mansion had only been downloaded six times and at least two of those were done by Streisand's lawyers. But within a month of the lawsuit becoming public knowledge, it was downloaded nearly a half million times.
Wikipedia defines the "Streisand Effect" as "an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead backfires as it leads to increased awareness of that information."
This brings us to the Paul McCartney of tone-deaf public relations moves, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. As I wrote in a piece late Monday evening, a GQ Magazine profile of Zaslav was aggressively edited not long after it was posted and then that version quickly disappeared from the website. You can check out this piece to track all of the differences, but it's clear that the intention of the rewrite was to soften some of the harsh criticism of Zaslav.
When I posted my piece, it wasn't clear what had happened and I wasn't able to get anyone on the record. Although it was pretty clear that the CEO had some influence on the decision to edit the piece. And today, a couple of pieces of reporting have fleshed out some of what happened. And the main takeaway is that Zaslav and his people read the piece, looked at the downsides of the Streisand Effect, and said "Hold my beer, I'll show you how badly someone can mismanage bad press."
Late Wednesday morning, Will Sommer at the Washington Post reported the author of the CQ piece - freelance film critic Jason Bailey - had asked that his byline be removed from the piece after extensive changes were made after it was published:
A Zaslav spokesman complained to GQ about the story soon after it was published, according to people close to the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve confidences. By early afternoon on Monday, the magazine had made extensive edits to the story.
“I wrote what I felt was the story I was hired to write,” Bailey said. “When I was asked to rewrite it after publication, I declined. The rewrite that was done was not to my satisfaction, so I asked to have my name removed and was told that the option there was to pull the article entirely, and I was fine with that.”
Early Wednesday afternoon, Variety's Tatiana Siegel reported that in the strangest coincidence in the history of entertainment journalism, GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch is producing a movie at Warner Brothers:
GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch is producing a movie at Warner Bros. titled “The Great Chinese Art Heist,” which is based on a 2018 GQ article by Alex W. Palmer. Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”) is attached to direct and produce the film, which chronicles an audacious European museum crime wave that targeted Chinese antiquities. The project already has a script in place by Ken Cheng, Jessica Gao and Jimmy O. Yang. Sources say Welch was involved in the discussions surrounding the removal of Bailey’s initial story and made the call to pull the revamped story, which ran some 500 words shorter than the published version. Those same sources say Warner Bros. Discovery complained about the initial story to two GQ editors, one of whom was Welch.
And predictably, a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson claimed the changes were requested due to bad journalism, not the fragile ego of a man who'd hoped running a movie studio would be as easy as greenlighting another TV series starring Guy Fieri and his son Hunter, the Frank Stallone of the culinary world:
“The freelance reporter made no attempt to reach out to Warner Bros Discovery to fact-check the substance of the piece before publishing — a standard practice for any reputable news outlet,” the spokesperson said. “As is also standard practice, we contacted the outlet and asked that numerous inaccuracies be corrected. In the process of doing so, the editors ultimately decided to pull the piece.”
That claim is only believable if you don't look at the changes between the two versions of the GQ piece. As far as I can tell, the editing sees designed to make Zaslav sound less like a hapless tool and more like a hardworking CEO who is just misunderstood by the powers that be in Hollywood. Consider, for example, the way the end of the profile was changed (the edited version is highlighted in bold:
Barely a month ago, Graydon Carter was hosting a party in Zaslav’s honor at Cannes, all but crowning him as the heir apparent to Jack Warner. But there’s a crucial difference between Zaslav and the old-school moguls he’s attempting to emulate: They loved movies, and cared about filmmakers. Zaslav sees movies as “content,” sees filmmakers as “content creators,” and is only interested in maintaining, preserving, and presenting “content” that can make him and his stockholders a quick buck. Anything that doesn’t, he’ll happily gut. He’s closer to Logan Roy than Jack Warner and there is a genuine, understandable fear that his bean-counting represents not just shrugging indifference but outright hostility to cinema and its rich history.
In Pretty Woman, Richard Gere stars as Edward Lewis, a corporate raider who buys companies “that are in financial difficulty” and sells off their pieces. “So it's sort of like stealing cars and selling them for the parts, right?” asks call girl Vivian (Julia Roberts), when he explains what he does, and it’s hard not to think of Lewis when looking over Zaslav’s reign at Warner Bros Discovery, stepping into the distressed conglomerate and stripping it for parts.
Edward Lewis, however, is at least honest about what he does. “You don't make anything,” Vivian notes, and he agrees; “You don’t build anything,” she continues, and he concurs with that as well. And perhaps that’s why David Zaslav is earning a concerning reputation so far. He’s out here carrying on like a mogul, but based on his performance to date, he’s only good at breaking things.
[The writer's union is striking for better wages and working conditions, and many of these fights are simply about how to split up a financial pie that has been radically changed by the pandemic and tech. But Zaslav's critics say it's more than that, expressing a fear that the financial machinations reflect not just shrugging indifference but outright hostility to the creative side of cinema. That's not a very novel line of attack: Netflix, for instance, has drawn comparable fire. But that company's CEO, Reed Hastings, doesn't seem to attract quite the same vitriol. Fair or not, with Zaslav, the criticism has gotten personal.]"
Yes, the original piece beats Zaslav like a pinata. But if there is any inaccuracy I can identify, it's in comparing the dapper Pretty Woman-era Richard Gere to Zaslav, who favors wearing vests that make him look a bit like the cranky school administrator in nearly every 1980s high school movie.
Modern-day media executives are expected to have a varied skillset in order to juggle the sometimes conflicting priorities of the marketplace. They need to satisfy investors, have a steady hand when it comes to strategic decisions and do what needs to be done to keep the customer base happy and hopefully growing.
A lot of those skills are dependent on not being a dumbass in public. Major media companies require an outwardly confident, steady hand. And no matter what David Zaslav accomplished in the past, his reign at Warner Bros. Discovery has been a series of unforced errors that rivals anything I've lived through as a Chicago Cubs fan. He's not a dumb person. In fact, I'd argue that in the abstract Zaslav and his team have made the best of a bad situation. A bad situation that was mostly the result of the costs of the Warner Media/Discovery Communications merger. But still, successful executives do what they can in any situation.
But any positives during Zaslav's reign have been offset by what feels like an endless string of decisions that have the worst possible optics. Anyone even casually following WBD can name a half dozen instances in which a decision was announced, quickly reversed after bad publicity and then followed by unsourced comments from people close to Zaslav arguing the change was decision he had intended to make all the time. In fact, the altered decision was his idea. Which either makes him appear to be not in control of the company or unable to stand up to a bit of bad press.
Asking for changes in an unfavorable profile is not unusual. But the pressure is generally wielded with more precision and a lot less public fumbling.
Zaslav's unforced errors have been magnified by his reluctance to speak publicly about strategy outside of some very safe appearances at high-profile investor's conferences. The net result is that Zaslav increasingly appears to be someone adrift in his job and unwilling to face the hard questions that come with running a multi-billion dollar worldwide media company.
If I was a major Warner Bros. Discovery shareholder, I would be seriously considering a change at the top. At some point, when you've driven a clown car long enough, people are only going to see you as a red-nosed source of amusement.
WHAT YOU MISSED ON ALLYOURSCREENS
While it was a long holiday weekend here in America, the web site did post some interesting stuff to keep the global audience engaged. And here are the highlights of what you missed:
* There are rumors that Dance Moms is returning with a new season and our Linda Martindale is not very happy.
* There was a time back in the 1950s and 1960s when TV lamps were quite the thing. This is a fun photo gallery of what you missed.
* A notable showrunner shared some thoughts about the future of television and streaming in this exclusive interview.
TWEET OF THE DAY
ODDS AND SODS
* While people in Hollywood might be unhappy with the performance of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, some stock analysts think he's doing a great job.
* It's always refreshing to be reminded about the radical theology of Mr. Rogers.
* The fourth and final season of Netflix's Sex Education will premiere on September 21st.
WHAT'S NEW FOR THURSDAY:
* Barnyard Builders Season Premiere (Magnolia)
* Breaking The Ice Series Premiere (WE tv)
* Call Her King (BET)
* Christian Season Two Premiere (Topic)
* Deep Fake Love (Netflix)
* Gold Brick (Netflix)
* Heart To Hart (Peacock)
* Jujutsu Kaisen (Crunchyroll)
* Kevin Hart: Reality Check (Peacock)
* Makeup x Breakup (ALLBLK)
* My Adventures With Superman Series Premiere (Adult Swim)
* Sean White: The Last Run (Max)
* The Kept Mistress Killer (LMN)
* The Lincoln Lawyer Season Two Premiere (Netflix)
* Wake Up, Carol! (Netflix)
* When Sharks Attack....And Why (NatGeo)
Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.
SEE YOU THURSDAY!
If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.