Peter Jennings, ABC News Anchor, Chief Editor, and a great American, has died from Lung Cancer at age 67. For nearly all of my aware life since middle school Jennings has been my anchor of record on television. For me there was a direct line between Walter Cronkite, the voice of record from the 60s and 70s, to Jennings. I am immensely sad to hear of his passing.

Peter Jennings became a citizen of the country he loved just two years ago. But it seemed he knew us better than anyone. He was born a Canadian and took advantage of that slight disconnect to study us as an ethnographer would. He moved to live among us and report the news, grew to love us, led us through many dark nights and but also provided cheerful highs. Eventually he became us.

In April when Peter Jennings announced he would be reducing his work load to fight Lung Cancer, you could sense that it was serious. Jennings, a past smoker, had faced longtime health problems before and had hoped to return to the Anchor desk. He never did.

This weekend, when rumors started swirling around the blogosphere that ABC affiliates had been notified that Peter Jennings was at death’s door, I refused to post anything about it. Perhaps both out of respect for the man and his family, and out of disbelief. I thought of the fight Jennings put up to keep ABC News in New York City when Michael Eisner wanted to move the whole operation to Los Angeles. I thought of the masterful job Jennings did when covering an event as full of pagentry as the marriage of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles of Wales as a London correspondant to the revelations of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism in the West.

Jennings was at the top of his game when generaling from behing the Anchor Desk. My heart goes out to his family and friends. I will miss him. America will miss him.

For more, the New York Times, paper of record for the city that Jennings lived in and loved, has a very nice article this morning. ABC News, of course, has a detailed collection of stories. Also see CNN.

[ttags:disney, abcnews, abc, peterjennings, jennings, anchor, lungcancer, cancer, death, memorial, obituary, television]

For Mr. Katzenberg, who had top movie jobs at Paramount Pictures and the Walt Disney Company before co-founding DreamWorks SKG in 1994, it seemed natural that he
would become the chief executive of his own company one day. But what
has caught many investors by surprise is the number of blunders
DreamWorks Animation has made since going public last October.

The NY Times has an article on the floundering fortunes of the DreamWorks Animation Company led by ex-Disney exec Jeffrey ‘Sparky’ Katzenberg. Turns out it’s not so easy to capture that ‘The Lion King’ magic again.

[Ttags: disney, katzenberg, animation, film, dreamworks, eisner]

Roy Disney has announced that SaveDisney.com, the website from which he led his charge to oust Eisner, will be shuttered as of August 7th. That’s a shame because there is plenty good reporting there. Many articles express the hopes and dreams of so many cast members, artists, fans, and scholars for the Walt Disney Company’s future well-being. Others are just wonderful historical documents.

If you don’t want to see this stuff go, please write Roy, Stanley, and the webmaster and let them know they should donate those articles to a website that would maintain them as an archive.

[ ttags: savedisney, disney, roydisney, roy+disney, eisner, shamrock ]

CartoonBrew reports that Longtime Disney Animator Floyd Norman has released another of his sketchbooks. This one has an edge however. "How The Grinch Stole Disney" pokes fun at Eisner and the anti-animation policies that have infested the mouse house recently.

Which brings up the question — Does anyone really think things will change at Feature Animation once Bob Iger is in charge?

Larry E. Ribstein, who plays a law professor in real life, breaks down the Ovitz shareholder lawsuit and posts what he sees as the likely result and why it is such an important case in corporate law.

First, … this case straddles several recent eras of corporate history.  It has moved from the pre-Enron era, to the post-Enron era of distrust of managers and of the laissez-faire Delaware approach, to the post-post-Enron era of distrust of regulation.

Dense reading but interesting for sure.

Ribstein posits that even though Disney’s Board informally considered firing Ovitz ‘with-cause’, which would have saved them tens of millions of dollars in severance payments, their decision to terminate Ovitz without-cause was made in ‘good judgement’ because the company wanted to save face with investors, which, I guess, is a legitimate business decision. The reason being if investors lose faith in the board’s hiring decisions it could cost the company much more than a few million possibly even leading to a takeover attempt.

Of course, investors lost trust in the board and Eisner anyway (Ovitz, Katzenberg, ABC Family, Themepark deterioration, Pixar negotiations, and talent flight, to name a few reasons). But there is no court for stupidity in corporate governance, only the imperfect market of shareholder pressure. One that has succeeded in removing Eisner, and we can assume a few of the offending board members, from power. 

A few choice quotes from around the horn:

The revolt succeeded at the company’s annual meeting last year in
Philadelphia, when 45 percent of the votes cast were withheld from Mr.
Eisner and the board stripped him of his chairman’s title. Five months
later, Mr. Eisner announced he would not renew his contract past 2006.
New York Times

Chalk another one up for Bob Iger. The incoming Walt Disney CEO, who has been in overdrive cleaning up problems inherited from
departing CEO Michael Eisner, pulled a giant thorn from his outfit’s
hide July 8 by striking a surprise agreement with dissident
shareholders Roy Disney and Stanley Gold
Business Week

But Friday’s actions suggest that Iger, who has
already made some apparent progress in mending fences with other Disney
partners like Pixar chief Steve Jobs, continues to make progress in changing Disney’s once-standoffish reputation.
The Street.com

The two shareholders had led a protest aimed at ousting Eisner after several years of lackluster results and lagging performance at the ABC television network, among other issues. Last year, however, ABC’s fortunes have reversed thanks to hit shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost."
CNN Money

And I have to say that WebproNews has the best headline for the story.
Roy Disney Wearing Mouse Ears Again

[ttags:disney, roydisney, disneyland, eisner, iger, bobiger, savedisney ]

One of the things I like about Eisner is that behind the facade of a tough, often out-of-touch, back-stabbing, Hollywood executive is the soul of a privileged white kid who spent his summers at camp for privileged white kids. Michael thinks that’s why everybody likes him. In fact, he’s written a book about it and creatively titled it Camp.

Alas, since there are only so many people in the world who jones for witty memories of white privileged kids his book hasn’t been selling too well. But what are you going to do when you’re the most powerful man in Hollywood? Cry? Retire? Maybe turn it into a movie.

For some reason I don’t think this post will put me on Michael’s Vermont Cheese list. I don’t think I’ll even get a catalog. Although I do love Vermont Cheese.

Disney has just announced huge stock options for the incoming CEO, CFO team of Bob Iger and Thomas Staggs. What remains to be seen is will this duo find in each other the creative pairing that made Eisner and Wells, Walt and Roy, so successful in their CEO/CFO partnerships.

Here’s a great post from "how to save the world", a Canadian’s blog with great insight into America’s strengths and weaknesses, that describes exactly how that sort of partnership should work. Anyone want to print this out and put it in Iger & Staggs in-boxes?