MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2020 B10 NTECH ECONOMY MEDIA FINANCE
2 FINANCE
Hobbled by debt and low
demand for natural gas,
Chesapeake Energy files for
bankruptcy protection.
3 CORNER OFFICEThe chief executive of
Feeding America on fighting
hunger amid a pandemic and
surging unemployment.
8 SMARTER LIVINGA plethora of apps promise
to help users build
contentment during chaos
through meditation.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Four thousandphone calls.
To be more specific, Paul and Julia Cox figure
they called the Florida Department of Economic Op-
portunity 4,480 times between April 19, when Walt
Disney World furloughed them, and June 7, whenglitches with their state and federal unemployment
benefits were finally sorted out.
The Coxes are among the lucky ones. While most
people have received one-time stimulus payments
from the federal government, UNITE HERE, a un-
ion representing 30,000 hospitality workers in the
Orlando area, recently said that at least 1,500 of its
members had yet to receive any unemployment pay-ments from the state. Florida has been one of the
slowest states to process jobless claims, in part be-
cause its system was designed to be arduous.
One housekeeper in late May sent UNITE HERE
a three-word plea: “Please help me!!!!”
Few areas of the country rely on tourism moreAn Economy on Hold
Virus Throws Orlando’s Tourism Workers Into Limbo
By EVE EDELHEIT
and BROOKS BARNESThe magic is gone
— for now. Streets
are empty at
Disney’s Magic
Kingdom.‘We live from the tourists. When we stop getting money, how are we
going to go to support those restaurants or support those stores?’ESTEFANIA VILLADIEGO, who manages attractions at Disney’s Magic
Kingdom, with her daughter, SARA CANCINO, 10‘Paying rent on time. Paying anything on time. Trying to decide ...
just really with the funds that I have left, trying to decide if I
should pay anything or not.’SERENA JAMES, a Disney World wig stylist, with GABRIEL AUSTRIE,
who works at SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove‘I could read everybody’s face, the fear of not knowing what was
going to happen. It was tense, it was sad, it was uncertain.’NANCY LUNA, a convention center employeeCONTINUED ON PAGE B5Boeing has received Federal Avia-
tion Administration approval to
start test flights of its 737 Max to
demonstrate that it can fly safely
with new flight control software.
The flights, which could begin as
soon as Monday, represent a ma-
jor step in the company’s effort to
get its best-selling plane flying
again.
The Max was grounded in
March 2019 after a pair of fatal
crashes — in Indonesia and Ethi-
opia — that killed 346 people. The
resulting crisis cost Boeing bil-
lions of dollars, including compen-
sation paid to victims and airlines.
It also led to the ouster of the com-
pany’s chief executive, set off gov-
ernment inquiries and raised
questions about the rushed effort
to build and approve the Max.
The certification flights, con-ducted by F.A.A. pilots, will proba-
bly take place in the Seattle area,
where the plane is made. A top
Boeing test pilot will also be on the
flights. “Testing is expected to
take several days, and will include
a wide array of flight maneuvers
and emergency procedures to en-
able the agency to assess whether
the changes meet F.A.A. certifica-
tion standards,” the agency said in
an email on Sunday to Senate and
House oversight committee staff
members.
If the flights are successful, it
could still be months before the
planes are deemed ready to fly
again. If the F.A.A. identifies fur-
ther problems, Boeing may need
to make additional changes. The
crashes were caused in part by
anti-stall software on the Max,
known as MCAS, which automati-
cally pushed the nose of theBoeing Receives Approval
To Test Troubled 737 Max
By NIRAJ CHOKSHI
and DAVID GELLESCONTINUED ON PAGE B3Last summer, members of eBay’s
private security team sent live
roaches and a bloody pig mask to
the home of a suburban Boston
couple who published a niche e-
commerce newsletter.
The harassment campaign,
which also included physical sur-
veillance, sending pornographic
videos to the couple’s neighbors,
posting ads inviting sexual part-
ners to the couple’s home and an
attempt to attach a tracking de-
vice to their car, was detailed ear-
lier this month in a federal indict-
ment against six former eBay em-
ployees.
The lurid, 51-page indictment,
describing how the employees of a
multibillion-dollar company were
loosed in what authorities de-
scribed as an unhinged and illegal
effort to intimidate critics, drew
national attention to the stunninglengths some tech companies will
go when responding to their crit-
ics.
Silicon Valley companies have
stacked what they often call their
“trust and safety” teams with for-
mer police officers and national
intelligence analysts. More often
than not, their work is well within
the law: protecting executives
and intellectual property, fending
off blackmail attempts and spot-
ting theft. They conduct back-
ground checks on companies that
could be acquisition targets and
they ensure employees aren’t do-
ing anything illegal.
But the industry’s intense focus
on reputation can lead their secu-
rity units astray. Those perils
were laid bare when federal au-
thorities revealed the charges
against the eBay employees.
“Most companies, especiallyWhen Tech’s Security
Oversteps the Bounds
By NICOLE PERLROTHCONTINUED ON PAGE B2Almost anyone who works in The
Washington Post newsroom can
look inside its publishing system,
Methode, to see what stories are
coming. And at the height of the
furor over Brett Kavanaugh’s
nomination to the Supreme Court
in 2018, some who did saw a
shocking article awaiting publi-
cation.
In the article, Bob Woodward,
The Post legend who protected
the identity of his Watergate
source, Deep Throat, for 30
years, was going to unmask one
of his own confidential sources.
He was, in particular, going to
disclose that Judge Kavanaugh
had been an anonymous source
in his 1999 book “Shadow: Five
Presidents and the Legacy of
Watergate.”
Mr. Woodward was planning to
expose Mr. Kavanaugh because
the judge had publicly denied —
in a huffy letter in 1999 to The
Post — an account about Ken-
neth Starr’s investigation of
President Bill Clinton that he had
himself, confidentially, provided
to Mr. Woodward for his book.
(Mr. Kavanaugh served as a
lawyer on Mr. Starr’s team.)
The article, described by two
Post journalists who read it,
would have been explosive,
arriving as the nominee battled a
decades-old sexual assault alle-
gation and was fighting to prove
his integrity.
The article was nearly ready
when the executive editor, Mar-
tin Baron, stepped in. Mr. Baron
urged Mr. Woodward not toHe Made The Post Great.
Now the News Is Changing.
CONTINUED ON PAGE B4Ben Smith
THE MEDIA EQUATION