Let me say at the very start of this column that my intention here is NOT to make light of last Friday’s tragic events at Disneyland. After all, a man died. And 10 other tourists were injured. Some of them seriously. So there’s nothing fun or funny to be found in a subject like that.
But — that said — a lot of us Disneyana fans don’t live out in Southern California. So we weren’t able to get any decent up-to-date information about the Big Thunder Mountain accident from our televisions. To keep tabs on what was actually going on in Anaheim, we had to turn to the Internet.
Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Thanks to all the hard work that the staff of MousePlanet and LaughingPlace.com put in last Friday, readers were kept up to date on the latest information as this terrible tragedy unfolded.
Me personally, I think that both of these websites did a really excellent job of covering the Big Thunder Mountain tragedy. From Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix actually going back into the Park that afternoon to get the first not-taken-from-a-totally-clueless-news-helicopter-operator-who-was-aimlessly-circling-overhead shots of the scene to the Moseleys typing up and then posting a full transcript of the Eisner/Rasulo press conference, MP and LP really rose to the challenge.
Last Friday afternoon, MousePlanet and LaughingPlace.com didn’t act like they were just some dweeby little Disney websites. They behaved like professional news organizations. By that I mean, they actually kept pace with the pros. Providing real-time coverage of the news surrounding the Big Thunder accident as it broke. And — in some cases — MP and LP actually scooped their supposedly-more-professional competition. Which is something that those of us who live thousands and thousands of miles away from Disneyland really appreciated
So — lest I forget — let me be the first to thank Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix, Andrew Rich, Lani Teshima and Alex Stroup over at MousePlanet.com for doing such an excellent job this past weekend with their coverage of the accident at Disneyland. Likewise kudos to Doobie and Rebekah Moseley over at LaughingPlace.com who also really busted their butts to make sure that LP readers were kept up-to-speed about what was unfolding in Anaheim. As well as keeping LP readers focused and on topic whenever they were talking about the accident on LaughingPlace.com’s discussion boards. Watching the way these folks worked last week actually made me proud that I write on the Web.
But you know who DIDN’T make me proud that I work on the Internet this past weekend? My old mentor, Al Lutz.
As I read the Big Thunder story that Lutz posted over on Miceage on Saturday, I couldn’t help but think “Al knows better than to write something like this.” What do I mean by that? Well, Lutz (for those of you who don’t already know this) was the guy who gave me my very first writing job on the Internet. ‘Way back when Al was running MousePlanet.
So Lutz was the guy who taught me a lot about what works (and — more importantly — what DOESN’T work) when you’re writing a story for the Web. Which is why I was surprised to see Al take what was a halfway decent article about how maintenance cutbacks at Disneyland may have contributed to Friday’s Big Thunder accident … and then suddenly turn that piece into a vicious, personal and completely over-the-top attack of Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
Which is why I keep thinking that … well … this has to be an act. That there’s no possible way that Al Lutz could actually hate Michael Eisner as much as he pretends to. Which is why I keep thinking that my old boss must be deliberately manufacturing these tidbits of seemingly rabid writing that he regularly drops into his Miceage stories. Just so we’ll all pay attention to his columns.
Which makes me sad. Why for? Because Al Lutz is a much better writer than this, people. He shouldn’t have to fall back on stupid writing tricks — like inserting deliberately inflammatory statements like “Unfortunately Michael Eisner was lying” into his stories — in order to hold his readers’ attention.
You know what I keep hoping? That Al Lutz will eventually stop relying on his patented “Bad News Travels Fast” technique in order to give all of his articles that extra added bit of oomph. If he just let go of that crutch, stop thinking that it was necessary to paint every single event that occurs at the Disneyland Resort in the blackest possible terms … Al would immediately become the top dog among Disneyana writers. Instead of regularly being dismissed as a not-so-harmless crank.
I mean, this guy’s got some truly killer sources. People who are extremely high up in the Disney food chain who regularly feed Al some great inside information about the parks. Lutz has access to stuff that no one else on the Web has access to.
But Al repeatedly squanders these gifts. He takes these great pieces of info, really-for-real scoops, then drops them haphazardly into columns that are loaded with unnecessary venom. Whether it’s real venom or pretend venom … who can say? But what I do know is — because Lutz insists on taking his often-well-written, well-researched stories and loading them up with unnecessary theatrics — very few people take what Al says seriously anymore.
Which is really a shame. Why for? Because there may actually be some truth to what Lutz was reporting in this past Saturday’s “Miceage” column. That the past five years of maintenance cutbacks at the Disneyland Resort may have indeed been a contributing factor in Friday’s Big Thunder accident.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Let’s let the Anaheim Police and Fire Departments and the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) complete their initial investigation of the accident before any of these other allegations actually get aired, okay?
Getting back to the more positive aspects of this truly terrible event … was I the only one who was kind of impressed with the way Disney CEO Michael Eisner, President of Disney Parks and Resorts Jay Rasulo and Disneyland Resort President Cynthia Harris handled themselves last Friday?
I mean, think about it. This awful accident has just happened at Disneyland. One man dead, 10 other people injured. And you just know that — in our era of “If it bleeds, it leads” journalism — the media is absolutely licking its chops over a story like this. A tragedy at Disneyland? Here’s an event that’s sure to generate headlines without even trying.
So what member of Disney upper management in their right mind would deliberately open themselves up to this sort of attack? Step in front of the press and have to deal with all those difficult questions? Wouldn’t it have just been much easier for Eisner, Rasulo and Harris to get someone else — like Disneyland’s Director of Press and Publicity Tom Brocato, for example — to take the heat? Let Tom be the poor slob who stood behind the podium, trying to answer all of those tough questions? (After all, isn’t that what Brocato is paid the medium-sized bucks for?)
But that’s not what happened, people. One by one, when it finally came time for the Walt Disney Company to put a human face on how the corporation was feeling about and/or dealing with the Big Thunder accident, all of these suits came forward. First Cynthia (who really did look shaken by what had just happened in her park) as — earlier that afternoon — she read that prepared statement which directly acknowledged the horrible accident that had just happened in Frontierland. And then Eisner and Rasulo stepped up during their late afternoon press conference.
Now some might argue that Michael, Jay and Cynthia weren’t actually behaving this way because it was the decent and right thing to do. That Eisner, Rasulo and Harris were just doing what Disney’s crack PR staff had ordered them to do. That the Mouse — having learned from all the mistakes that the company made in the wake of the Columbia tragedy and the Roger Rabbit accident — had to immediately begin damage control. Which is why Mickey put the corporation’s big guns out in front of the press as quickly as possible. To show their sincerity and concern. To quickly reinforce the idea that the Walt Disney Company really does consider the safety and well-being of its guests/customers to be a top priority.
Well, the cynics may choose to look at how events played out at Disneyland last Friday afternoon and opt to interpret them that way. That Michael, Jay and Cynthia were just doing what Disney’s damage control experts told them to do. Me? I’m not going to do that. I was actually really impressed with the way Eisner, Rasulo and Harris handled themselves. When it would have so much easier just to run and hide, these three stood in the spotlight and took the heat.
Which why I’ve decided to postpone that “Post Eisner Era” story. At least for a week or two. My apologies to those of you who may have dropped by JHM today just to read that article. But — given that the Walt Disney Company is already dealing with one black eye — I wasn’t really in the mood to give the Mouse another one right now.
You see, I’m not one of these guys who thinks that there’s a lot of sport to be had in kicking someone when they’re down.
Whereas Al Lutz … well, you can figure that one out for yourselves, can’t you?
Your thoughts?