Someone on my husband Rich's Disney Echo WWW site pointed this out. CBS Channel 2 News in New York is doing a series of reports, Monday 2/9/04 and again on Tuesday 2/10/04, about food safety violations at Walt Disney World. Here's the link to the story, there is also a "Video" you can click on to actually see the report. Keep in mind, however, however sensational and "piling on" this report and the following one may sound, that February sweeps (TV ratings period) began Thursday, February 5. The second part of the report to air today is set at Epcot and the tease is how a British park guest is supposed to have seen not just Mickey Mouse there, but another 'rodent' as well... It's sweeps, this station is piling on no doubt about that, and it's sweeps.... My husband Rich did pass this along to the Webmaster at SaveDisney.com, who replied they hadn't heard this news yet.

http://cbsnewyork.com/investigates/local_story_040205229.html

I've read Al Lutz and his writings first on Mouse Planet and then on Mice Age, and he and co-writer Kevin Yee have reported on food safety violations at Disneyland Resort, too. I won't go into it, but the nature of the violations as they write about them sound worse than the CBS 2 New York story talked about.

The other critical factor to keep in mind with the above story and today's (coming to the site later on), is that it's February sweeps! Began last Thursday, February 5 and goes on for most of this month. TV stations are trying their best to get you to watch everything about them. They use the viewer number statistics to set advertising rates. So the networks, for example, will do very engrossing specials and regular episodes of entertainment programming. And the local news departments will try to do their own "special reports", sometimes that wander into the sensational and prurient like this WDW food safety story. So CBS 2 News in New York succeeded in saying "Aha! Made you look! Made you look!" CBS 2 News New York is indeed piling on, especially when you consider all the negative news lately surrounding the Roy Disney-Stanley Gold vs. the Disney Board and Michael Eisner stuff and the collapse of negotiations with Pixar stuff swirling around in the background.

On the link, click "Video" and you can actually see the report as aired in New York, the nation's #1 media market. Notice how it's editted. The more visible and motion intensive rides such as the Carousel and Teacups are used to underscore a "queasy" subliminal slant in relation to the subject matter of the story, and it's obviously, well, "piling on". The reporter, in some cutaways during interviews, looks smug.

It's clearly factual some WDW restaurants got cited and some people were ill, and Disney may have "compensated" a park guest for her illness and bad time at the park in return for not making a mountain out of a molehill out of it in case it was merely an isolated case. Doesn't sound like it's so very isolated. But Disney did respond on camera about it, it can be very hard to keep up with heavy food volume and thus cleanliness and proper temperatures with heavy food demand. But Disney has operated WDW for decades, and ought to come up with a way to anticipate and exceed health code requirements and not let heavy volume deter or distract them. Disney has the wealth and responsibility to see about this, whatever it takes.

Part Two airs today and will be online sometime after it airs. It's about Epcot this time, and the teaser is about how a British park guest, on camera, says she saw not just Mickey Mouse, but another 'rodent' as well...

Rich did report this story to SaveDisney.com's Webmaster, who replied they hadn't heard about this story yet.

Scroll up in this thread, and you'll see the stuff within the original post of this thread to click on that takes you to the story, once there you can watch the "Video" by clicking on it. Rich went to Google, hit "News" instead of using the home page search engine, then on the "News" part of Google entered as keywords 'CBS Disney', and then this story should pop up, click on it and you go to CBS 2 News New York City, their local CBS affiliate and owned and operated by CBS/Viacom.

Of course, with Janet Jackson and Jason Timberlake at the Super Bowl half-time show recently it's not as if CBS is beyond reproach, either.... ;-)

See discussion in thread in WDW forum. (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?threadid=25040)