April 3, 2020 By DYLAN BYERS in Los Angeles & AHIZA GARCÍA-HODGES in San Francisco Good morning. 🗣️ Top talker: Google has released COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports, which use people's smartphone location data to show how counties, states and countries are practicing social distancing (or not). Google says the data is aggregated and anonymized, and does not violate user privacy.
💼 March jobs numbers come out at 8:30 a.m. ET. They will not provide a full picture of the economic damage caused by the coronavirus. We won't get that til April's report, when job losses are expected to be in the millions.
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Bloomberg/Getty Bad Times in Burbank Bob Chapek turns to furloughs
Moving the Market: Bob Chapek will start furloughing Disney employees this month in an effort to curb the severe economic toll of the coronavirus outbreak. The move comes just days after Chapek announced temporary pay cuts for all of the company's executives.
• "With no clear indication of when we can restart our businesses, we’re forced to make the difficult decision to take the next step and furlough employees whose jobs aren’t necessary at this time," the company said in a statement.
• The company also said "all impacted workers will remain Disney employees through the duration of the furlough period," with full access to health care benefits.
• Disney did not say how many employees would be affected by the furloughs, but the move is expected to impact all theme park and cruise employees, as those businesses have been suspended.
The big picture: Disney, one of the most powerful media and entertainment companies in the world, has been leveled by the coronavirus pandemic because all of its businesses — film and TV production, theatrical shows, theme parks and cruises, etc. — are exposed to the pandemic and to social distancing measures.
• The steps Disney is taking to cope with the pandemic — cutting executive pay, furloughing employees — are thus being closely watched as sign posts for the tough decisions that all major media and entertainment companies may soon be forced to make.
At the executive level, the pandemic is also a cruel twist of fate for Chapek. As I wrote last month, when Chapek was named CEO he was thought to be inheriting one of the best jobs in media and entertainment. Instead, he has inherited a crisis — the impacts of which may be felt throughout his tenure.
Spencer Platt/Getty Amazon on Fire David Zapolsky blows it
Communications Crisis: Amazon executives held a meeting in which they discussed a plan to smear a Staten Island warehouse worker who was fired after he organized a walkout, Vice's Paul Blest reports. (Amazon says the employee was fired for violating a quarantine after exposure to coronavirus.)
• In notes from the meeting, Amazon SVP and General Counsel David Zapolsky wrote that the employee was "not smart, or articulate," and said the company should focus on making him "the face of the entire union/organizing movement" that has been calling on Amazon to change its policies on worker safety.
Zapolsky: "I was frustrated and upset that an Amazon employee would endanger the health and safety of other Amazonians by repeatedly returning to the premises after having been warned to quarantine himself after exposure to virus Covid-19. I let my emotions draft my words and get the better of me.”
💸 How to Give It 💸
Jeff Bezos has donated $100 million to Feeding America to help get food to families in need during the coronavirus pandemic. It is the largest gift in the nonprofit's history.
• Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs and Apple have raised $12 million to launch America’s Food Fund, which will also help get food to people in need during the pandemic.
Bloomberg/Getty Job Openings Sheryl Sandberg: We're hiring
Moving Menlo: Sheryl Sandberg says Facebook expects to hire an additional 10,000 people for its product and engineering teams by the end of this year, a rare sign of job growth at a time when many American firms are being forced to cut back.
• "Our hiring is keeping at a very, very aggressive clip," the Facebook chief operating officer told CNBC.
Plus: Sandberg also announced Thursday that Facebook would give $40 million in grants to 10,000 small businesses in the United States that have been negatively affected by the coronavirus.
• In a Facebook post, Sandberg said she hoped the grants would allow businesses in need "to remain open, support their employees and keep delivering for their customers."
The big picture: Facebook and its leaders have seized on the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to do good and help people in need, from Mark Zuckerberg's commitment of $25 million to coronavirus treatment research to Facebook's guaranteed employee bonuses and its $100 million investment in local news.
• In addition to all the good they're doing, the contributions have also given Facebook's leaders an opportunity to notch a few wins after years of scrutiny and negative press.
Bloomberg/Getty On Delay NBC Sky World News on hold
Talk of TV Land: Comcast/NBCUniversal is delaying the launch of NBC Sky World News — the new global news service that was set to launch this summer — due to the coronavirus. NBC will review the launch plans once the coronavirus outbreak has subsided.
• The big picture: The new service will unite Comcast's NBC News and Sky News and is widely seen as an attempt to challenge CNN International and BBC World News in global television news.
NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC News.
Win McNamee/Getty House Calls Dr. Fauci blitzes the media
Big in the Beltway: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a bulwark against White House misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, has been talking about the outbreak on just about any show, podcast or social media platform that will have him.
• In recent days, he has been a guest on NYT's "The Daily," CNN’s coronavirus town hall and a sports radio show hosted by Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski.
• He’s also been on Fox News, four popular YouTube channels and a Facebook Live interview with Mark Zuckerberg.
The big picture: "Fauci is not merely shouldering the burden of representing science in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. He is also skillfully managing a fractured and often vicious media sphere where there is little agreement on what matters most, and where some are out to get him," WaPo’s Margaret Sullivan writes.
• "He is simultaneously managing a facts-resistant president who throughout his tenure has shown little respect for scientific or governmental expertise. All of this with millions of lives on the line."
📺 What's next: The weekend. Starting today, HBO is making almost 500 hours of programming available to stream for free, including "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Veep" and "Silicon Valley."
See you Monday.
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