Stuffing the Straw Man in Florida

We live in a narrative-based world, not a fact-based world. People have stories they want to tell. Some facts are inconvenient. I don’t blame a politician’s rivals for telling stories and weaving narratives. But I do think the press corps should be more honest about what is happening. Instead, they’re stuffing a strawman argument down our throats about Disney’s cuts in Florida.

The New York Times headline is “Disney Pulls Plug on $1 Billion Development in Florida” with the subheading “A new office complex, and relocation of a division from California, would have created more than 2,000 jobs but was scuttled as the company and Gov. Ron DeSantis continue to feud.” The clear implication is that DeSantis’s feud with Bob Iger and Disney has cost Florida 2,000 jobs and $1 billion in development.

Except that is not really the story.

The Times starts with this:

In March, Disney called Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida “anti-business” for his scorched-earth attempt to tighten oversight of the company’s theme park resort near Orlando. Last month, when Disney sued the governor and his allies for what it called “a targeted campaign of government retaliation,” the company made clear that $17 billion in planned investment in Walt Disney World was on the line.

But then we learn something the further we read into the story.

Get to the fourth paragraph, and we learn that “[t]he project, near Lake Nona Town Center, was supposed to cost $864 million, but recent price estimates have been closer to $1.3 billion” and that “Disney had planned to relocate as many as 2,000 employees from Southern California.”

But go one more paragraph, and we learn that “[m]ost of the affected employees complained bitterly about having to move — some quit — but Disney held firm.” The project started under Bob Chapek, whose work Iger is unraveling completely.

Here’s the start of the fourteenth paragraph:

The Lake Nona campus, about 20 miles from Disney World near the Orlando International Airport, had been championed by Bob Chapek, who served as Disney’s chief executive from 2020 until he was fired last year. Mr. Iger, who came out of retirement to retake Disney’s reins, was much less enthusiastic about the project — even before the company became mired in its battle with Mr. DeSantis. [Emphasis added]

Here’s the fifteenth paragraph headed into the sixteenth paragraph:

Mr. Iger has been systematically reversing Mr. Chapek’s decisions. In February, for instance, he announced that Disney would restructure its inner workings, ending a framework put in place by Mr. Chapek. In March, as part of wide-ranging layoffs, Mr. Iger shut down a 50-person metaverse project that Mr. Chapek had started.

Disney is also in the midst of cutting $5.5 billion in costs as it seeks to improve profitability, pay down debt and restore its dividend. Later on Thursday, for instance, Disney said it would close an underperforming luxury hotel at Disney World.

Disney was going to build a project in Florida. Its costs ballooned to over $1.3 billion at a time Disney is trying to cut over $5.5 billion. Iger didn’t like the project already, and the staff didn’t like the project either.

But somehow, this is Ron DeSantis’s fault?

Look, it is savvy PR for Iger to try to make it about DeSantis. It is savvy politics for DeSantis’s political rivals to try to make it about DeSantis. But it is really dishonest of the New York Times to frame a decision that is clearly not about DeSantis as if it was. Just because two sources with an ax to grind against DeSantis say it was about DeSantis, the facts clearly show it was not.

Oh, don’t look now.

Disney (DIS) will lay off thousands of more workers this week as it looks to slash 7,000 jobs by the summer.

This week marks the second round of job cuts following a first round that began the week of March 27. Disney officials said Monday that at the completion of this second wave, 4,000 jobs will be eliminated.

A project with hundreds of millions of overruns and an underperforming hotel that got shuttered along with 7,000 global layoffs is not a DeSantis problem. But kudos to Bob Iger for getting some shots in on this.

It’s just another reminder that the political press is, like so many they complain about, post-truth and post-fact. The narrative is all that matters, and the press corps covets Trump getting the GOP nomination. It’s good for business.

Some argue that (a) a month ago Iger suggested he could curtail investment in Florida because of DeSantis and (b) now he has so it must be true.

But go back to the New York Times story. And I quote, “Mr. Iger, who came out of retirement to retake Disney’s reins, was much less enthusiastic about the project — even before the company became mired in its battle with Mr. DeSantis.”

So Iger is “much less enthusiastic” about the project.

His enthusiasm turned off “even before the company became mired in its battle with Mr. DeSantis.”

He’s got to save $5.5 billion.

Staff were already quitting over the project because they don’t want to move.

So Iger sets it up a month ago, and now willing members of the press fall for the spin. Uh-oh, the Wall Street Journal adds more context:

“At Disney’s annual meeting in early April, Iger announced that the company plans to invest $17 billion in Florida over the next decade and create 13,000 new jobs.”

So if DeSantis is going to get the blame for Disney shutting down a project the CEO turned against before the DeSantis fight, does DeSantis get credit for the $17 billion in investment and 13,000 new jobs Disney says it plans for Florida?