Okay. Where were we?
1) Michelle was right. 2) Michelle was right. 3) Michelle was right. 4) Michelle was right.
Oh, yeah. NOW I remember … You may recall last week that our fearless editor, Michelle Smith, took JimHillMedia.com out on a very long limb last week by running this story which reported the rumor that Thomas Schumacher, the head of Disney Feature Animation, had been fired and/or was being forced out of the Mouse House.
5) Michelle was right. 6) Michelle was right. 7) Michelle was right. 8) Michelle was right.
Which – because I was already asleep back here in the East when this particular item was posted – I didn’t find out about this rumor ’til early the next morning. When various LA media outlets began calling me, looking for confirmation of the story that Michelle had put up on the site. (Just in case you’re wondering: Giving a reporter an answer like “Huh? What? What story are you talking about?” doesn’t exactly earn you lots of credibility points. Anyway …)
9) Michelle was right. 10) Michelle was right. 11) Michelle was right. 12) Michelle was right.
Which is why I ended up spending most of last Wednesday and Thursday on the phone, trying to find someone – ANYONE – inside the Walt Disney Company who could confirm this rumor.
13) Michelle was right. 14) Michelle was right. 15) Michelle was right. 16) Michelle was right.
You see, I come from the Woodward / Bernstein school when it comes to reporting rumors, kids. I like to have at least three different sources to corroborate a piece of info before I finally decide to run with it. Why for? Well, the Walt Disney Company has an awfully big legal department full of extremely aggressive attorneys. And I honestly wouldn’t want to do anything that would upset all of those pit bulls-with-briefcases.
17) Michelle was right. 18) Michelle was right. 19) Michelle was right. 20) Michelle was right.
Of course, even when you triple source a story like this, you can still manage to tick of an awful lot of people. I mean, look at what happened week before last when I ran those stories about “Finding Nemo”? I managed to piss off both Pixar as well as Disney Feature Animation. All because I dared to report that the test scores from “Nemo” test scores allegedly hadn’t been as high as studios execs had hoped they would be. More to the point, that someone inside the Team Disney Burbank building had supposedly deliberately been leaking info about how “Finding Nemo” was going to be Pixar’s first flop.
21) Michelle was right. 22) Michelle was right. 23) Michelle was right. 24) Michelle was right.
I spent over a week working on that “Nemo” story, folks. Making numerous calls, trying to track down additional info about that screening as well as learn as much as I could about the Disney exec who supposedly dishing dirt on Pixar. Yet I still got people over on the JimHillMedia.com discussion boards like Yookeroo saying things like “Shouldn’t Jim be above this sort of rumor mongering?” and RallyMonkey saying that that story was “all hearsay and speculation.” Sigh I guess you just can’t please everyone …
25) Michelle was right. 26) Michelle was right. 27) Michelle was right. 28) Michelle was right.
Anyway … I now wake up on Tuesday and find out that – after sending a single e-mail to a friend of ours who works at Walt Disney Feature Animation in her attempt to confirm this rumor (This guy’s response was reportedly: “Yeah, I’ve heard lots of rumors to this effect at work lately. But is it true? I dunno.”) – Michelle had gone ahead and posted this incredibly explosive piece of info up on JimHillMedia.com. Talk about your Maalox moments.
29) Michelle was right. 30) Michelle was right. 31) Michelle was right. 32) Michelle was right.
In Michelle’s defense, I should point out that – at the very top of this article – she did include a header that read: “This information is unconfirmed, and should be treated as a rumor until confirmed by the Walt Disney Company.” The only problem is that – due to the way that pages are laid out here at JimHillMedia.com – that this disclaimer actually appeared in a box above the story, rather than being attached to the story itself. Which is why (apparently) very few readers (and reporters, for that matter) saw it.
33) Michelle was right. 34) Michelle was right. 35) Michelle was right. 36) Michelle was right.
So – as you can imagine – given that I’m the guy whose name is all over this website, I had to quick-like-a-bunny get into reporter mode and get to the bottom of this rumor. Cover my (and Michelle’s) ass, if you will, and chase down any additional info and/or documentation that I could find about what was really going on with Thomas Schumacher.
37) Michelle was right. 38) Michelle was right. 39) Michelle was right. 40) Michelle was right.
So I began calling everyone I knew in Burbank. And … well … here’s where it gets REALLY interesting, folks. You see, all I could ever get out of the folks that I talked with at Disney was what I like to call non-denial denials. By that I mean, people would say things like “To the best of my knowledge, Tom Schumacher is still with the company” and/or “I’m not personally aware that Thomas Schumacher has been asked to step down.”
41) Michelle was right. 42) Michelle was right. 43) Michelle was right. 44) Michelle was right.
The language that these people were using was so cautious, yet so precise that I knew that something HAD to be up. I just couldn’t put my finger on what was actually going on.
45) Michelle was right. 46) Michelle was right. 47) Michelle was right. 48) Michelle was right.
But then I finally caught a break. Late Thursday afternoon, someone very high up in Disney Feature Animation finally returned my call. Who exactly are we talking about here? Sorry, but that would be telling, kids. For now, let’s just call this guy “Mortimer,” a Mouse House exec who I’d have to say is very much in the loop.
49) Michelle was right. 50) Michelle was right. 51) Michelle was right. 52) Michelle was right.
Anyway … after a little bit of chitchat, Mortimer lets loose with a bombshell: The rumor that Michelle had posted on JimHillMedia.com WAS true. Sort of. By that I mean: Schumacher’s days at Walt Disney Feature Animation really were numbered. But that – because of all of the negative publicity that Michael Eisner had gotten on the heels of Paul Pressler’s recent unexpected departure – Disney’s embattled CEO really couldn’t afford any more bad press right about now. Particularly the sorts of stories that would result if yet another top tier executive opted to walk out of Burbank’s front gate.
53) Michelle was right. 54) Michelle was right. 55) Michelle was right. 56) Michelle was right.
Which is why Eisner and Schumacher reportedly cut this very unique deal. If Thomas agreed to stay on at WDFA until late next spring (well after “Treasure Planet,” “Jungle Book II,” and “Piglet’s Big Movie” had been released to theaters), then Michael would agree to give Thomas the Peter Schneider treatment (I.E. Set Schumacher up with his own very production company. So that Thomas could potentially produce new stage plays and musicals for Disney Theatrical to present).
57) Michelle was right. 58) Michelle was right. 59) Michelle was right. 60) Michelle was right.
The only condition to this exit deal was that Eisner wanted as much distance as possible between the time when Pressler exited the company and when Schumacher “chose” to move on. Otherwise, Disney’s CEO was sure to get hammered with another round of “Michael Eisner must be impossible to work for. Otherwise, why would all of his top executives keep bailing on him?” stories. By keeping Schumacher’s upcoming exit under wraps for a few more months, Eisner could hopefully limit the amount of damage that the announcement of Schumacher’s departure would do to his tattered reputation.
61) Michelle was right. 62) Michelle was right. 63) Michelle was right. 64) Michelle was right.
The way Mortimer explained it to me: “By posting that rumor, Michelle’s really let the genie out of the bottle, Jim. Now I don’t know if Eisner will dare to allow Schumacher’s exit deal to go through. After all, Michael’s reputation with the investment community is already in the sh*tter. If news that yet another top Disney executive was getting ready to bail out of the company were to get picked up by the mainstream press … It may be all over for Eisner. I’m certain that (Disney Board of Directors member) Stanley Gold will try to use the news of Schumacher’s exit as definitive proof that Michael has finally lost control of the Walt Disney Company. Which might finally be enough for Stanley & Roy (Disney) to convince Disney’s board of directors that it really is time to let Eisner go.”
65) Michelle was right. 66) Michelle was right. 67) Michelle was right. 68) Michelle was right.
Mortimer continued: “Michael may have no choice now but to ask Schumacher to stay on a lot longer than he originally planned on. All in an effort to shore up the illusion that the Walt Disney Company actually has a stable management team in place. So – by running that story – Michelle may actually have done a great dis-service to all us poor slobs at Disney Feature Animation. I mean, we’re the ones who’ll probably get stuck working with that &%%*$#@ Schumacher for months longer than we originally were going to have to. All because you guys posted that story.”
69) Michelle was right. 70) Michelle was right. 71) Michelle was right. 72) Michelle was right.
Which was why Mortimer asked a favor of me. As in: Could I try to put the genie back in the bottle by issuing a semi-pseudo-sort-of retraction to the rumor that Michelle had posted last Tuesday? Which (hopefully) would take some of the heat off of Eisner and Schumacher. Maybe even throw some of the other reporters who were also pursuing this story off the scent.
73) Michelle was right. 74) Michelle was right. 75) Michelle was right. 76) Michelle was right.
I told Mortimer that – while I really did want to help him out – I wasn’t going to lie to JimHillMedia.com readers. Mortimer’s response was: “You wouldn’t have to lie, Jim. Just do what Disney does. Issue a non-denial denial in response to the rumor.”
Which explains that rather odd addendum some of you may have read at the end of last Friday’s “Why For” column. Where (in an effort to help out the poor slobs at WDFA) I attempted to cobble together a semi-coherent explanation/apology in response to Michelle’s Schumacher rumor story.
77) Michelle was right. 78) Michelle was right. 79) Michelle was right. 80) Michelle was right.
Sadly, I lack the gift of being able to talk convincingly out of both sides of my mouth (Which – I’m guessing – means that my chances of ever landing a job with Disney’s PR department pretty much amount to nil now). Even so, I still tried to work a few non-denial denials into that column. (EX: Please note the deliberately misleading “Thomas Schumacher hadn’t actually been fired,” rather than a much more precise explanation like “My understanding is that the deal that Schumacher cut with Eisner will actually allow him to hang on ’til the middle of 2003. Which will allow Thomas to stage his own somewhat graceful exit – where Schumacher will probably say something like he’s leaving Disney of his volition to ‘to pursue other opportunities.'”)
81) Michelle was right. 82) Michelle was right. 83) Michelle was right. 84) Michelle was right.
But – since my heart really wasn’t in this charade – it came as no surprise that my ploy didn’t work. That smallish story at the end of last week’s “Why For” column didn’t throw anyone off the scent. Particularly not LA Times reporters Claudia Eller and Richard Verrier. (EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m not honestly sure if it was Michelle’s story that actually clued Eller & Verrier in on what was going on at WDFA. After all, Claudia and Richard are both pretty sharp reporters in their own right. So I’m pretty sure that these two already had sources of their own that were letting them know that Schumacher’s days at the Mouse House were numbered.)
85) Michelle was right. 86) Michelle was right. 87) Michelle was right. 88) Michelle was right.
Whatever the reason … Claudia and Richard decided to pursue this story. And they were the ones who were able to get the folks over at Disney to do something I couldn’t: Which was go on record and admit that WDFA head Thomas Schumacher HADN’T actually been fired … but WOULD still be leaving the Walt Disney Company under his own power by next June (Just about the same time that Pixar’s next flick, “Finding Nemo,” finishes up its first week in release). So those two (as well as Michelle) are the ones who really deserve the credit for finally forcing this much-talked-about-behind-closed-doors story out into the open.
89) Michelle was right. 90) Michelle was right. 91) Michelle was right. 92) Michelle was right.
Of course, Disney being Disney, they still tried to do everything that they could to control this highly damaging story. As C.W. Orberleitner pointed out to me earlier today: “Look when they finally decided to release this info to the Times, Jim. Late Friday night. Long after the stock market had closed for the week. All with the hope that this story would end up buried inside Saturday’s business section where no one would read it.”
93) Michelle was right. 94) Michelle was right. 95) Michelle was right. 96) Michelle was right.
The big question now is – now that the cat’s out of the bag – will Schumacher actually stay with WDFA ’til June 2003? Or will the waves of sure-to-be-negative press that will leap up in the wake of this story breaking (Don’t you just feel sorry for Disney’s PR flaks? Those poor folks who are right in the middle of trying to launch a huge, upbeat promotional campaign for “Treasure Planet”? Now these marketing mavens are going have to become master of spin control – all in an effort to keep reporters focused on writing about the studio’s newest feature length animated release, rather than going on and on about what a surprise it is that the head of WDFA will soon be leaving the company) force Thomas to bail out of the Mouse House a lot sooner than next June?
97) Michelle was right. 98) Michelle was right. 99) Michelle was right. 100) Michelle was right.
Either way … It was fun to be a part of a big breaking story like this. Even if my “Trying to Put the Genie Back in the Bottle” ploy didn’t exactly work out. (Sorry about that, Mortimer. I honestly gave it my best shot.)
Beyond that … did I mention that Michelle was actually right (sort of) about this Thomas Schumacher rumor?
Your thoughts?