A ‘chilling’ read
TGIF. Today’s Q&A is with filmmaker Leslie Iwerks. Plus, Andrew Kirell, Liam Reilly and I have curated some excellent weekend reads for you…
My #1 weekend read for you is the PDF of Disney’s First Amendment lawsuit against the FCC.
The suit doesn’t take any special legal knowledge to decipher. It’s a gripping narrative, laying out President Trump’s words and Brendan Carr’s actions against the FCC one by one, showing how “the administration has steadily increased the pressure” on ABC for months, “culminating in the present threat to the broadcasting licenses of the eight ABC owned stations.”
The Bulwark called the text of the lawsuit “a chilling catalogue of governmental efforts to restrict speech at the behest of the president.” (Their headline: “Disney Says No to the Lyin’ King.”)
Talking with sources close to the company this week, I heard a belief that the actions against Disney fit into a broader set of actions against the US media writ large. One source said the ABC license challenge is “part of the master plan.”
There’s also an awareness that filing the lawsuit could invite further retaliation — but that Disney had to defend itself.
So will the company win? “Disney has a far stronger case against Carr than Carr has against Disney,” former FCC’er Blair Levin, a New Street Research analyst, told TheWrap.
But the process could take a while. Yesterday Judge Loren AliKhan turned down Disney’s request for an urgent hearing and said she’d hear arguments in early October instead. However, in a positive development for Disney, the judge said she would hold an immediate hearing if the FCC makes a move against ABC’s licenses between now and then.
>> Another POV: Media historian Michael Socolow predicts that Disney will eventually lose on appeal, citing a 1943 Supreme Court case, NBC v. US. “But I also think that as long as the lawsuit remains alive through the appeals process, and the framing of FCC censorship as draconian overreach persists, ABC will win in the court of public opinion,” Socolow writes. “That’s ultimately why ABC’s lawsuit is a valuable civic service in the public interest.”
Before Disney made headlines by suing the FCC, I interviewed director Leslie Iwerks — whose grandfather Ub Iwerks co-created Mickey Mouse — about her newest Disney documentary, “Worldbuilders.” The project shows how the company turns films like “Frozen” and “Zootopia” into theme park experiences. It premiered at D23 last weekend and is streaming now on Disney+.
– Who’s your intended audience?
Anyone who wants to create something out of nothing. This is a story about creativity and joy. About kids coming up with ideas and stories in their heads, overcoming their own challenges and their own doubts, and becoming pretty amazing filmmakers. [They] created these worlds, these characters that are now beloved, and that now are worlds that we can inhabit in the theme parks.
– With all the talk about AI and virtual worlds, is there something especially resonant about ‘Worldbuilders’ right now?
I guess I really want to remind people that so much of Disneyland and Disney was built on original concepts and hand-craftsmanship. These stories and characters and theme parks come from the minds of creative people and from their hearts.
AI is a technology just like so many technologies through the decades. But at the end of the day, it has to come from the human mind and human creativity.
– Do you have an assessment of where Disney stands in the wider media landscape?
It has DNA implanted by Walt Disney from the very beginning when Disneyland rose from the dirt out of orange groves. It was this idea that, as Walt said, Disney ‘will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.’
And, you know, that is a great thesis for what became a 100-year company. The business model — of joy and happiness — resonates throughout the company, throughout cruise ships and parks and everything that Disney is a part of. It’s based on that simple idea of joy and magic. And that’s, I think, what is envied by a lot of companies.
The New York Times just lost its first US defamation lawsuit in more than 50 years. A jury in Alabama found that the publication defamed basketball player Kai Spears in “a 2023 article that incorrectly reported he was at the scene of a deadly shooting in Tuscaloosa.” The jury “awarded $9.25 million in damages,” the NYT’s Katie Robertson wrote.
But this is just the beginning. NYT spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said “we thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence,” which is a polite way of saying, “We’re confident this will be overturned on appeal.” Ryan Phillips of Tuscaloosa Patch, who covered the entire trial, said “no timetable has been given for when the Times plans to appeal.”
Jonathan Lemire’s latest piece for The Atlantic gets at why all the attention on Trump aide Natalie Harp is warranted. It’s not just about her proximity to power; it’s about her “human printer” influence: “Each item she prints, whether a positive poll of dubious origin or an attack on a political foe, reinforces Trump’s worldview,” Lemire writes.
Driving the Harp coverage today: The Daily Beast has published two of Harp’s “Dear Mr. President” letters from 2023. Here’s a recap via CNN’s Kaanita Iyer…
>> Semi-related: Scott Jennings has emerged as an “early favorite to replace Karoline Leavitt,” but the process is just beginning, CNN’s Kristen Holmes and Alayna Treene reported yesterday.
As Prince Harry and Meghan move back to Britain, the BBC says “their American experience overall reveals the limits of celebrity in Hollywood. Fame may get you through the door, but it does not guarantee staying power.”
This morning, Tina Brown reported that Meghan’s agents at WME have lined up an acting role for her, helping Harry “to get her buy-in for his growing desire to get the hell out of paradise and go home to the world he understands.”
Meantime, after losing their case against the Daily Mail’s publisher, Harry and other celebs were hit with a $13 million bill today, CNN’s Issy Ronald and Lauren Said-Moorhouse report. The total sum will eventually be even steeper…
Karen Bass “urged California attorney general Rob Bonta and Paramount to resolve their differences and work ‘urgently’ to find a resolution to the 12-state antitrust lawsuit,” Variety’s Todd Spangler reported yesterday.
The Writers Guild of America dissed Bass for joining “Paramount’s pressure campaign on public enforcers, to push through a merger that is being rightfully challenged as illegal and will lead to job losses in the entertainment industry.”
The Food Section has a creative solution to the flood of AI pitches hitting its staff’s inboxes: Starting next month, the indie food and culture outlet will take pitches only by phone.
“Having been deluged by AI-generated and enhanced story ideas this summer, we’re re-humanizing the process with a dedicated hotline,” founder Hanna Raskin wrote on LinkedIn this week.
NiemanLab’s Hanaa’ Tameez spoke with Raskin, who estimates that a quarter of recent pitches have been “wholly AI, meaning neither the writer nor the proposed story appears to exist in the real world…”
Move over, deepfakes — Elon Musk’s X is being taken over by subtlefakes, “AI-generated images of celebrities that are subtly edited to make them more revealing or provocative,” 404 Media’s Emanuel Maiberg reports.
“These images are almost always posted by verified engagement farming accounts on X, which pays the people who operate them if their posts get enough impressions,” he writes, suggesting that this phenomenon is “a warning sign for how people’s AI use is evolving from abusive but obviously fake, to more subtle, less offensive, but much harder to detect.”
So we’ll need better detection tools. NiemanLab’s Andrew Deck recently wrote about Backstory, “an experimental tool from Google’s AI research lab” that’s helping journalists sort through a “stream of slop, scams, and disinformation.” Details here…
>> Jim Sciutto interviews Iranian photojournalist Yalda Moaiery, who is facing 15 years in prison. (CNN)
>> Aidan McLaughlin asks, “What’s next for Trump’s wildly pugilistic, seriously professional press shop?” (VF)
>> Andrew Marantz assesses First Amendment questions here: “How far will the Trump administration go to deport Mahmoud Khalil?” (New Yorker)
>> Bill Grueskin chronicles his four-month experiment as a “69-year-old rookie,” using a sabbatical to work as a junior editor at the Salt Lake Tribune and see firsthand how local journalism has (and hasn’t) changed. (CJR)
>> Daniel Miller travels to Illinois for a look at the “massive moviemaking exodus from Hollywood.” (Politico Mag)
>> David Gilbert and Kate Knibbs report that “election officials are preparing for prediction markets to sow chaos in the midterms.” (WIRED)
>> Anna Tingley reports that Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” has “returned to bestseller charts following the theatrical release of ‘Tony.’” The film opens wide this weekend. (Variety)
>> Seattle Times columnist Matt Calkins has resigned “after editors refused to publish a column he wrote about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.” (NYT)
>> “Salem Media’s sale to Christian nonprofit WaterStone has officially closed.” (Radio Ink)
>> “A teen girl whose lawsuit was a test case” about social media addiction has “dropped her claims.” (Reuters)
>> Apple Music “will begin labeling songs on the platform derived from AI platforms.” (Variety)
“‘The Odyssey’ has notched another record on its epic box office voyage,” Variety’s Rebecca Rubin reports. Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster is “officially the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time with $1.352 billion worldwide, overtaking the benchmark set by 2024’s ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’” The movie “has generated $516 million domestically and $835 million internationally — a massive tally for any movie, but especially an R-rated sword-and-sandal adventure that’s nearly three hours long,” Rubin writes.
Speaking of “The Odyssey,” anyone who’s struggled to score tickets for IMAX showings can relate here:
“This week’s competition for ‘Dune: Part Three’ tickets renewed a feeling of stress and weariness among fans” looking to purchase tickets, WIRED’s Miles Klee writes in an article titled, “Why Is It Absolute Hell to Buy a Movie Ticket Now?”
Klee says that “overwhelmed theater apps and a scarcity mindset around exclusive big-screen formats for blockbusters… have led to the ‘concertification’ of movies.”
I’m just glad people are eager to go to the theater at all!
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.