For a few days last fall, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood celebrated a big victory: the tiny advocacy group had successfully pushed the Walt Disney Company to offer full refunds to everyone who had bought the company’s popular Baby Einstein videos from June 2004 to September 2009.
But it did not take long for trouble to follow. The group has been evicted from the Harvard-affiliated children’s mental-health center in Boston that had housed and sponsored it for more than a decade.
Campaign officials say they were forced out after Disney made contact with health center officials. Neither Disney nor officials of the center, the Judge Baker Children’s Center, would comment about the eviction.
Just days after the Disney refunds were described on the front page of The New York Times on Oct. 23, campaign officials said they were contacted by Judge Baker officials expressing unhappiness with the group’s activities.
Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, the psychiatrist who directs the Media Center at the Judge Baker center and oversaw the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and Susan Linn, the campaign’s director, said center officials had told them that Disney contacted them three times.
“The Judge Baker staff informed us they didn’t want us to talk to the press, or to say anything about Baby Einstein,” Dr. Poussaint said. “They suggested to me that Disney was threatening to sue Judge Baker.”
So, it turns out that the Disney-owned "Baby Einstein" videos weren't educational in the least, so the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sued, won, and the next thing they know they're evicted from their offices. What's even more bizarre, according to the article linked to above, is that the Campaign was going to put up a huge event connected with the children's center that *had* been their home. Losing something like $80k, the center cancelled the event entirely.
That's some serious pressure.
And to think they were actually doing some good work for kids.
The most disturbing part of the article is when the head of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood admits: "...Indeed, we were told that we could no longer criticize any corporations, even if they were exploiting children.”
When a corporation like Disney has that kind of invisible, "big stick but don't have to use it" power, I think it should be scary for all of us.
Hit up that NYTimes link to read the whole article.
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