The Spirited Seventh Heaven ...

[WDW1974]

He was referring to "the news" you were going to drop.

I was aware of that, but the CNN report took precedence ... why give Disney another fire to put out? Let them have a chance (poor little fellas and all!)

 

[Lee]

The only way this is news is if it is proven that Disney was complicit.

Nonsense.
Complicity is not the issue, as I see it. Failure to be proactive in addressing the problem is.

 

[GoofGoof]

My motives are very simple: to expose the ugly underbelly that Disney (and UNI and SW to lesser extents) have when it comes to issues such as this.

I'm honestly questioning this community when so many folks want to defend a corporation instead of asking if Disney (and, again, UNI and SW) did due diligence in hiring these people. Period.

And, yes, a company takes 'some' responsibility for the people it hires, especially if they engage in illegal activity from work.

I would like to know if they did proper due diligence when hiring these people. The story never really got into that. Is that the follow up? If there is any evidence that Disney is not properly screening employees I will be the first person to jump all over them. There should be a zero tolerance approach especially in places that attract these people, but I'm not sure about polygraphs. Best practice is probably to attempt to instill a real corporate culture of zero tolerance that's not just a buzz word or a PR response to a CNN report, but an actual culture. I bet some of these people's co-workers saw stuff that was questionable. See something, say something.

 

[lazyboy97o]

It's part of a larger story. Teachers. Priests. Scout leaders. Anyone who is involved with children, actually.... Disney's part of it is a small part of a much larger story.

Child sex abuse is reaching epidemic proportions and that's the larger world view. Just no one is putting all of the pieces together and going all-in.

As evidenced by this very discussion people are able to put the pieces together just fine. They recognize the attractiveness of such professions and the limitations of screening. A truly groundbreaking report would have to go well beyond raw numbers and showing higher levels of incidents.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Nonsense.
Complicity is not the issue, as I see it. Failure to be proactive in addressing the problem is.

Failure to be reasonably proactive is being complicit.

 

[WDW1974]

This!

The news story was over..

It's not over. CNN will be following up ... and, hopefully, others.

And I want to make sure that 20 pages of posts don't disappear before I drop news here that will drive folks to the site.

 

[WDW1974]

Nobody is denying the incidents or that certain jobs would be attractive to those seeking to do harm. What is being disputed is your assertion that Disney et al. are in a position to significantly control the situation.

When I hire people, as I have in the past, I have made every effort to make sure that I wasn't hiring anyone who had ANY criminal issues.

Yes, huge companies like Disney, UNI, SW absolutely have some control ... to what degree, I'm not sure. But neither are you.

 

[stevehousse]

I wasn't aware of that. But you can't expect every incident to get in a report. You know better than most here how things often get cut from stories (or even inserted) by folks who didn't spend days, weeks or even months working a story.

The fact it is a problem everywhere means the media should do whatever it can to bring it to light, so it hopefully becomes a very rare issue. Not an every day one.

I do think that it is weird they didn't mention the Cap nude photos since it was so recent??? I would think that would be something they would at least mention since it was just 3 months ago...

 

[John]

Nonsense.
Complicity is not the issue, as I see it. Failure to be proactive in addressing the problem is.

Look I am not trying to be combative here....I really am not...just asking questions. How do you know 100% that they are not taking action? Just because a problem exist doesn't mean they are not doing anything.

 

[Voice of Disney sanity]

My motives are very simple: to expose the ugly underbelly that Disney (and UNI and SW to lesser extents) have when it comes to issues such as this.

I'm honestly questioning this community when so many folks want to defend a corporation instead of asking if Disney (and, again, UNI and SW) did due diligence in hiring these people. Period.

And, yes, a company takes 'some' responsibility for the people it hires, especially if they engage in illegal activity from work.

I completely accept that. Btw I have no intention of defending Disney on here in any way or fashion. I just did not see anything in that story that implicated them in wrong doing other than the fact that they attract kids so naturally pedophiles are attracted to disney. The only way I can see a remedy is for them to make the parks and attractions more for us older folk and run all the kids off

 

[Fantasmicguy]

I was aware of that, but the CNN report took precedence ... why give Disney another fire to put out? Let them have a chance (poor little fellas and all!)

So when is it going to be dropped.Sometime this week or this month?

 

[WDW1974]

Again, 74....I am a big fan. But to debate an issue where you have information that you know we as a group have no way of knowing isn't exactly very fair....is it Mr. Debate champion?

No, John. But placing out personal information about other individuals and their proclivities on the 'net is pretty stupid. And you know I am not that.

Instead of worrying about what I know, I'd put the focus on what was reported.

I'm honestly shocked by the amount of folks who appear, on first glance at least, to have more of an issue with people reporting pedophilia and discussing it then it actually happening. I really didn't expect this crowd to be so pro-corporation in 2014 knowing what y'all know.

 

[Trauma]

You're taking this awfully personally.

I'm not blaming Disney, I'm blaming American society as a whole.

IMO this story is about the crime itself, not where they work.

Nonsense.
Complicity is not the issue, as I see it. Failure to be proactive in addressing the problem is.

You are 100% correct if there are actions that can be taken that are legal and within reason.

I'm just not sure how much power we want to give corporations to pry into are personal lives.

Should they track everything there employees do at all times even when they are not at work?

I'm all for proactive solutions that would help prevent child abuse. I just don't have a clear concept of what those solutions are?

I guess if the overall result of this horribly done news story is a closer look at what can as should be done then the result is a net positive.

 

[WDW1974]

We'll talk later then.

As for the actions of these people? Holy crap. They're pretty bad. I'm not sugar coating them.

I'm saying that for The level of story that this was, CNN didn't deliver what was warranted. You and I both know that if this was the NYT or WaPo or LAT( for example), they would have looked at 5-10 years of arrests And went from there.

Looking at this from my News Editor hat, this is jut a piece of a larger puzzle. You want to look at child sex a use in America, let's look at Disney. And the Scouts. And the Priests. And the teachers. And let's do a big comprehensive story that cannot be dismissed easily. There's a bigger picture here at play and they messed it up.

True enough.

But I'm not sure what their resources are for something like this. And when folks are taking summer vacations to theme parks, I am sure they felt (correctly) that they had a good hook ...

 

[Sneezy62]

I understand your point but how is this different from breaking a story that sexual predators work at Wal-Mart for example.

Just based on the pure size of the company I can say for certain they do with 0 proof what so ever.

Disney is limited in scope by the laws that prevent in depth and continuous probing into individuals backgrounds.

Unless Disney is making federal and local laws I fail to see the point of pointing the finger directly at Disney or universal.

Disney has been making laws in Florida since the mid 60s and the have a major lobby presence on Capitol Hill.

 

[Smiddimizer]

Disney is NOT the victim here.

The exposé was targeted at theme parks in general, because its eerily ironic. How theme parks, the "happiest places on earth" are this much closer to being unsafe for children. Thankfully the problem is still in its embryonic stage seeing as they're scheduling meetings outside of property.

But there are...likely still are...employees such as these working closely with children. Disney is no more responsible technically than Chuck E Cheese would be in the given circumstances (though their attitude is questionable).

But they still are responsible.

I think legal jargon is distracting people from the obvious.

 

[Ranch Dressing]

When I hire people, as I have in the past, I have made every effort to make sure that I wasn't hiring anyone who had ANY criminal issues.

Yes, huge companies like Disney, UNI, SW absolutely have some control ... to what degree, I'm not sure. But neither are you.

And that's discrimination. You might want to keep that under your hat especially if Disney is doing background checks on posters. Don't want to open yourself up to possible llitigation.

 

[WDW1974]

Don't have any problem at all with anything you said in the first line, I just didn't appreciate the way they framed it, even though I knew that's how they would do it. I'm more surprised you seem to be in favor of polygraphs as a hiring measure considering all the negatives against it that have been quite solidly proven. Heck, I'd never land a job I had to do a polygraph for just because of the kind of person I am, I would be sending those needle points flying all over that graph paper even if I were reading a word for word script of my life story.

I'm not in favor of them.

But I tossed them out because I know they have been used before. I would never take one myself.

 

[cw1982]

And that's discrimination. You might want to keep that under your hat especially if Disney is doing background checks on posters. Don't want to open yourself up to possible llitigation.

How is screening potential employees to be sure they have no criminal background discrimination?

 

[Lee]

Failure to be reasonably proactive is being complicit.

Not really with the definition I used. Yes, I looked it up before I posted.
"Choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others; having complicity."
But, whatever...

Disney isn't doing anything to purposely facilitate this behavior, as I see it. They simply aren't going out of their way to stop it. Reminds me a bit of the old Ford Pinto problem. The "cheaper to pay off the victims than to solve the problem" mindset.

 

[WDW1974]

Ding di
agree 100%
Not to mention CNN has little credibility left. This chatter about it being on CNN makes it a big story is off base IMO. The head of CNN himself even recently stated that CNN was moving away from reporting and more into entertainment. They admittedly are less credible as a news source.

Bull. They may not be what they once were, or even close, and their coverage of the missing jetliner was the strongest form of embarrassing, but they have many fine journalists working for them. Anderson is one of them.

And they broke the whole VA Hospitals scandal of late. They still do good work, just not all the time.