I couldn't find an Eisner discussion section, so I am posting this email I had forwarded to me that originated with Michael Josephson of Character Counts:
Disney Chief Lies, the Press and Public Yawn 385.1
You couldn`t miss the story about the riot at the Indiana-Detroit
basketball game, yet a bigger story was greatly underplayed. Unless you
read the business section of your newspaper you probably don`t know about
the recent courtroom testimony of Michael Eisner, the Chairman of the Walt
Disney company.
During cross-examination, this prominent business executive admitted
without embarrassment or remorse that he repeatedly lied publicly and
privately to conceal a monumental business error and an irreparable rift
between Disney and its newly-hired-but-in-the-process-of-being-fired
president Michael Ovitz - a termination that cost Disney $140 million.
The audacity and content of the admissions should have merited headlines,
but I`m afraid this is another example of the disease of low expectations.
Despite indignant huffing and puffing about the lies and deceptions that
led to a parade of multi-billion-dollar corporate scandals, it seems that
no one really expects top corporate leaders to be honest, at least not when
lots of money is on the line.
How else do you explain the ho-hum indifference to Mr. Eisner`s confession
that he deliberately lied on the Larry King Show in order to soothe worried
employees and investors and to protect the lies he was telling to Sony
Corporation as he tried to convince them to take over the Ovitz contract?
Oh, he also lied in subsequent press releases and interviews and at least
"exaggerated" the facts in internal memos.
People get fired for years-old lies on resumes, but here you have the CEO
of the biggest brand in family entertainment as well as ABC News reveal
himself to be a serial unrepentant liar. But instead of moral outrage, the
press and the public just yawn.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Disney Chief Lies, the Press and Public Yawn 385.1
You couldn`t miss the story about the riot at the Indiana-Detroit
basketball game, yet a bigger story was greatly underplayed. Unless you
read the business section of your newspaper you probably don`t know about
the recent courtroom testimony of Michael Eisner, the Chairman of the Walt
Disney company.
During cross-examination, this prominent business executive admitted
without embarrassment or remorse that he repeatedly lied publicly and
privately to conceal a monumental business error and an irreparable rift
between Disney and its newly-hired-but-in-the-process-of-being-fired
president Michael Ovitz - a termination that cost Disney $140 million.
The audacity and content of the admissions should have merited headlines,
but I`m afraid this is another example of the disease of low expectations.
Despite indignant huffing and puffing about the lies and deceptions that
led to a parade of multi-billion-dollar corporate scandals, it seems that
no one really expects top corporate leaders to be honest, at least not when
lots of money is on the line.
How else do you explain the ho-hum indifference to Mr. Eisner`s confession
that he deliberately lied on the Larry King Show in order to soothe worried
employees and investors and to protect the lies he was telling to Sony
Corporation as he tried to convince them to take over the Ovitz contract?
Oh, he also lied in subsequent press releases and interviews and at least
"exaggerated" the facts in internal memos.
People get fired for years-old lies on resumes, but here you have the CEO
of the biggest brand in family entertainment as well as ABC News reveal
himself to be a serial unrepentant liar. But instead of moral outrage, the
press and the public just yawn.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
