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The Daily Beast: "Warner Discovery Is Killing Off Diversity" [1]

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Date: 2022-08-26

Thank you to samanthab for directing me back to this article but this is infuriating.

I’ve done previous articles about David Zaslav’s leadership as the CEO of Warner Discovery and how he is destroying HBO Max and its relationships to its creators by essentially destroying their hard work in hindsight after it’s already been released via tax write-offs. But what’s not really been addressed is that most of the shows disappeared and erased from the streaming service were younger skewing and featured diversity and LGTB-friendly content.

That’s not a coincidence. According to The Daily Beast, Zaslav has been firing network heads of color and is looking to court “Middle America” from this point forward.

www.thedailybeast.com/…

One former employee says as many as 13 people of color previously in charge of developing shows like The Gordita Chronicles and the Spanish-language docuseries Menudo: Forever Young have been let go, likely influencing the types of shows and movies that are greenlit moving forward. Among those laid off are Jen Kim, an Asian woman who served as the senior vice president of the international team, and Kaela Barnes, a Black woman who worked under Kim. “I don’t think anyone knows just how white the staff is,” one former executive told The Daily Beast. Former HBO Max staffers say there are barely any non-white people left in the upper ranks of content, with one naming Joey Chavez, an executive vice president of drama, as one of the few people of color still there. Because HBO Max and the original HBO channel operate somewhat independently, one former executive conceded that “there may be one Black woman on the HBO side. Maybe.”

Jesus, that pisses me off.

Also in a previous diary ( www.dailykos.com/… ) I mentioned that many of the shows on HBO Max that were being removed and being written off for tax purposes and I was directed by many people in the diary to another article that claimed the tax write-off that Company CEO David Zaslav used to destroy the films Batgirl and SCOOB: Holiday Haunt doesn’t effect those properties in the same way. Well, according to a source in the Daily Beast article it DOES, and those shows and films HAVE been essentially destroyed.

The change in perspective could also partly explain why so many titles have recently disappeared from HBO Max’s platform. Our sources agree that the removals are mostly related to money. The company can claim a tax break for the costs associated with certain shows as long as it promises to stop profiting off them, which means taking them down altogether.

I have been reluctant to do another diary on the subject because there have been a TON of people jumping in the comments to threadjack and ask me if I understand how capitalism works, or that companies have the absolute right to destroy art they have ownership of, and artists having little to no rights there is absolutely fine and dandy. I had to tend to each of those diaries all freaking day to remind people there that on a Democratic site we tend to support struggling and badly treated workers against oppressive Republican CEO’s.

Also, if you think this subject is trivial and doesn’t matter to the larger goal of electing Democrats, move on, okay? You don’t impress me with your pop-culture snobbery. There are a lot of subjects on Daily Kos that don’t personally effect me either. I don’t go into those diaries and smugly declare how superior I am to the people tearing out their hair at the subject in question.

I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t mind bringing this news to Daily Kos. Readers have expressed further interest. But I don’t feel like tending to the diary all freaking day. I DO have a life. I want to be able to work on my comic book for my Gilda and Meek site (gildaandmeekandtheuniverse.blogspot.com/… )

and my Dreamwidth reviews. Plus, I don’t do flame wars very well. I tend to take them personally which is another reason I’m reluctant to do these diaries any further.

Just if you think the subject is trivial, or you feel like Big Business exploiting loopholes to screw over workers is fine and dandy, just move on. Personally, I don’t see the point in spending all day arguing online about why a specific subject doesn’t actually interest me but that’s because I have enough self-awareness to see the disconnect there. Just chill, all right?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/26/2118905/-The-Daily-Beast-Warner-Discovery-Is-Killing-Off-Diversity

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