Washington Post opinion writer Alyssa Rosenberg announced, Monday, that she would no longer review Disney films or those put out by their subsidiaries, Lucasfilm or Marvel.
Rosenberg wrote that she was boycotting their widely held media advance screenings out of solidarity with the Los Angeles Times, whose journos were banished after some critical reporting over Disney’s relationship with the city of Anaheim, California.
“As long as Disney is blocking the critics from the Los Angeles Times from press screenings, I can’t in good conscience attend similar showings or write reviews in advance,” she wrote. “Until the Times’ critics are treated like everyone else and welcomed back to press screenings, I’ll write about Disney movies, including ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel movies, after their premieres — generally that will mean writing about them on the Monday after their release to a general audience.”
As Rosenberg points out, advance screenings can be enormously valuable for reporters, allowing them more time to formulate their thoughts and get reviews out the moment an embargo is lifted. Forcing journalists to buy a ticket and see films with the general audiences delays final publication and puts them at a competitive disadvantage in Google search results.
In a statement last, Disney defended their decision. saying the act Times coverage
We regularly work with news organizations around the world that we don’t always agree with, but in this instance the L.A. Times showed a complete disregard for basic journalistic standard. Despite our sharing numerous indisputable facts with the reporter, several editors, and the publisher over many months, the Times moved forward with a biased and inaccurate series, wholly driven by a political agenda-so much so that the Orange County Register referred to the report as ‘a hit piece’ with a ‘seemingly predetermined narrative.’ We’ve had a long relationship with the L.A. Times, and we hope they will adhere to balanced reporting in the future.”