Hey, Bob Iger, you survived the most expensive corporate proxy fight in history. What are you going to do now?
I’m going to Disney World!
You could excuse Disney’s chief executive for acting like a Super Bowl-winning quarterback this morning. Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz tried to win a seat on Walt Disney Co.’s board of directors, which would’ve given Iger more than a few headaches. But in what turned out to be a huge win for Iger, shareholders overwhelmingly backed him and the company’s nominated board members.
The Los Angeles Times’ Meg James and Samantha Masunaga wrote, “In Disney’s most consequential board election in 20 years, Peltz fell short in his long-shot bid to wrangle a seat on the board. Preliminary results showed that Peltz mustered about 31% of the vote, according to a person close to the election but not authorized to comment. In contrast, Iger received a resounding 94% of shareholders’ support — a decisive victory that reinforces his popularity among large institutional investors as well as small shareholders who are nostalgic for the company, its stories and theme parks.”
Peltz’s bid was, indeed, a long shot. (For a lot of reasons, as pointed out in separate columns in the Los Angeles Times from Michael Hiltzik and Mary McNamara.)
But now that it’s out of the way, Iger can get busy with what’s next. Iger said in a statement, “With the distracting proxy contest now behind us, we’re eager to focus 100% of our attention on our most important priorities: growth and value creation for our shareholders and creative excellence for our consumers.”
Variety’s Todd Spangler wrote, “Peltz’s defeat is a vote of confidence in Iger and the current board. And it’s certainly a relief for Iger, who must have been dreading the prospect of dealing with Peltz directly as a board member. Iger commented on Peltz’s proxy fight at a Morgan Stanley conference last month, saying, ‘This campaign is designed to distract us. I am working really hard to not let this distract me, because when I get distracted everybody who works for me gets distracted, and that’s not a good thing.’”
However, it has put a spotlight on where Disney goes from here and, specifically, on who will eventually replace the 73-year-old Iger as CEO. Remember, Iger stepped down once before in 2021. But his hand-picked successor, Bob Chapek, was fired after only two years with Iger making a stunning return to the top job.
Iger’s current contract runs through 2026. Then what?
Reuters’ Dawn Chmielewski wrote, “This week, attention focused on Disney Entertainment Co-chairman Dana Walden as the current top contender, among Hollywood insiders, many of them former Disney executives or those who have done business with one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates. Walden is a creative TV executive in the mold of Iger, with a string of commercial and critical successes and strong talent relationships, who has quickly adapted to the company’s culture after 25 years at 21st Century Fox, said those who have worked with her.”
Chmielewski mentioned other possibilities, including Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment co-chairman Alan Bergman.
Disney had a strong first quarter and stock has gained 30% this year. But there is still plenty on Iger’s plate, particularly when it comes to media.
James and Masunaga wrote, “Now, Iger and his management team must accelerate the company’s turnaround plans, including efforts to make its streaming business profitable. Disney needs to find ways to preserve the power of its ESPN sports empire, and other TV channels, while also reinvigorating its movie pipeline and expanding its theme parks and resorts business.”
Disney announced Wednesday that the standalone ESPN streaming service will be available on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Disney reiterated what we already knew — that the standalone ESPN service should be available in the fall of 2025.
And in the shareholder meeting, Iger showed the company’s commitment to ESPN, saying, “ESPN continues to deliver meaningfully for the company.”
For more about Wednesday’s shareholder vote, check out the story from The Wall Street Journal’s Robbie Whelan and Lauren Thomas.
This was a big story in media circles last year. The Marion County Record, a small but scrappy weekly paper in Kansas, was raided by police. So was the home of co-owner and publisher Eric Meyer. A day after the raid, the paper’s co-owner and Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, collapsed and died in the home she shared with her son. Meyer says he believes the stress of the raid was a contributing factor in her death.
Now the paper and Meyer are suing the police.
What started all this? As the Associated Press’ John Hanna explains, “The city’s former police chief — who later resigned amid the ongoing furor — justified the Aug. 11 raids by saying he had probable cause to believe the newspaper and a reporter potentially committed identity theft and other computer crimes in obtaining and verifying information about a local business owner’s driving record. The lawsuit claims the paper and its reporters did nothing illegal, the search warrants were improper and officials had longstanding grudges against the newspaper.”
Meyer claims he and the paper are due $10 million.
In a statement, Meyer said, “The last thing we want to do is bankrupt the city or county, but we have a duty to democracy and to countless news organizations and citizens nationwide to challenge such malicious and wanton violations.”
According to Hanna, the town of Marion has about 1,900 people and the town’s budget in 2023 was about $8.7 million. The county’s budget was about $35 million.
NBC “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie appeared on CBS’s “The Late Show” this week and was asked by host Stephen Colbert about the whole mess involving former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel. NBC News hired McDaniel as a contributor but then parted ways with her after many of the journalists at NBC News and MSNBC essentially staged a mutiny.
Colbert jokingly asked Guthrie, “Why did you, Savannah Guthrie, personally make that decision to hire her?”
Guthrie joked that she wanted to make her answer as “boring as possible,” but admitted to Colbert that, like many of her colleagues, she was not aware McDaniel was being hired.
“No, I was not in the know,” Guthrie said. “I knew nothing about it. And look, the bosses made a decision. They reversed that decision. They acknowledged a mistake, and we moved on. And the only thing I’ll say about it is, No. 1, I didn’t have anything to do with it. But look, I think the instinct to try to have a diversity of opinions and a diversity of perspectives and voices as we cover an election is the right instinct. And it’s complex, and it’s made more complex by the politics that we have right now. But, you know, I went to law school. In law school, we learned that if you didn’t engage the counterargument, if you didn’t know what all sides were saying, your own position was quite weak. So I feel that, particularly in mainstream media, we need to include an array of voices. But there’s a line, and the line is truth, the line is facts, and the line is you have to be someone upholding our democracy. And that’s, to me, where the line is.”
Guthrie told Colbert that it was “an unpleasant few days at our network, no question about it.”
LSU basketball star Angel Reese in a game Monday night in the NCAA Tournament. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)
Here’s my favorite thing today. LSU women’s basketball star Angel Reese announced Wednesday that she will pass up her final year of college eligibility to turn pro and play in the WNBA. Well, that part is cool, but what made it really cool is where the news was announced: Vogue magazine, complete with a stylish photo shoot.
Sports journalist Jane McManus tweeted, “Page from Serena Williams. You have news? Get the best photo shoot.”
I see this as a really smart announcement.
This is a critical time for women’s basketball, especially the WNBA. Over the next few years, the league will have an influx of college superstars, including Reese, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, UConn’s Paige Bueckers and USC’s Juju Watkins.
Reese’s announcement is a big splash, and perhaps it reaches beyond even casual sports fans. And it shows and celebrates that Reese has interests outside of basketball. It also shows that she is not just recognized as a basketball player, albeit a really good basketball player. She has reached celebrity status.
Making the announcement in Vogue signals that. Click on the link, check out Leah Faye Cooper’s story about Reese, read what Reese has to say. Good stuff.
Washington Post digital sports editor Dan Steinberg tweeted that six of the Post’s seven most-read sports stories on Tuesday were about women’s college basketball.
I could have included this in the “media tidbits” section below, but I wanted to call a little extra attention to it.
Lachlan Cartwright, who is now at The Hollywood Reporter, writes this special piece for The New York Times Magazine: “What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise.” The subhead reads: “Inside the notorious ‘catch and kill’ campaign that now stands at the heart of the former president’s legal trial.”
It’s worth the time.
Be sure to check out these two pieces from Poynter’s PolitiFact. First, Madison Czopek with “How paid X accounts blamed Israel, Ukraine for the Baltimore bridge collapse.” And Amy Sherman with “’An environment of distrust’: How Elon Musk amplifies falsehoods about immigration, 2024 voting.”
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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