Letter About Disney Raises Question About Columnist: Of the many sources of friction between Michael D. Eisner and Michael Ovitz during their ill-fated partnership at the Walt Disney Company in the mid-1990's, one previously unknown bone of contention recently surfaced: Mr. Ovitz's attempted manipulation of the news media.
In a seven-page confidential letter written to Mr. Ovitz, then the company's president, Mr. Eisner, the chairman and chief executive, tallies his professional and personal complaints with Mr. Ovitz, and takes particular issue with one journalistic interaction.
Mr. Eisner in the letter in November 1996, quotes Mr. Ovitz as saying that Peter Bart, the editor in chief of Variety as well as one of its columnists, had sent him an article prior to publication for "corrections and tone and editing.''
