Back in November, the Los Angeles Times was blocked from movie screenings by The Walt Disney Company following an article that was critical of the relationship between Disney and the city of Anaheim. Several days later, after fellow journalists threw their support behind the Times, Disney reversed their decision after “productive discussions with the newly installed leadership at The Los Angeles Times.”
The Huffington Post has uncovered documents that the “newly installed leadership” may have been Times president, Miyuki Rosen, who appears to have a connection to a Sean Shoptaw, a vice president at Disney.
A grant deed from 2014 shows that Rosen and Shoptaw own a property together in Brentwood, California. Shoptaw was deeded a 30.9% ownership of the property that Rosen once shared with her husband. Additional documents indicate that, as of October 2017, the pair still own the property.
While Shoptaw’s role in the company seems to be limited to the consumer products division, the HuffPost still questions his connection to Rosen and why it hadn’t surfaced until now. How much input Rosen had in the discussions between Disney and the Times is also unknown.
While as president, Rosen’s role should have been on the business-side of things, the HuffPost suggests that this line may have been blurred due to her long-time working relationship with CEO and publisher Ross Levinsohn, who she crossed paths with at at least five other companies. Many employees of the newspaper, in fact, weren’t even sure what Rosen’s day-to-day role as president entailed.
Rosen is no longer president of the Times, having recently received a yet-to-be-announced promotion within Tronc, the parent company of the Times.
Last week, an employee of the Times filed an internal complaint with Tronc regarding “both Rosen’s lack of disclosure regarding her Disney connection and the fact that the details of the Times-Disney detente had never been made clear.”
Tronc has not commented on the HuffPost article.
Source: Huffington Post
