The Oscars and PwC Post-Envelope Flub: Can This Marriage Be Saved?

The Academy’s longtime accounting firm has apologized for the envelope mixup that plunged the end of the 89th Academy Awards into chaos, but it may take more than a two-paragraph apology to repair the relationship between PwC and the Academy.

[...] one of the company’s two Oscars balloting leaders gave the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty, who was walking onto the stage to hand out the last and biggest award of the night.

[...] when the wrong winner was announced, the two PwC staffers who had all the winners memorized failed to correct the error for two full minutes, letting three “La La Land” producers make acceptance speeches before that film’s team was informed that “Moonlight” had actually won the top award.

Cullinan and Ruiz both knew that an error had been made as soon as Dunaway said, “La La Land,” but it was nearly two minutes before the Oscars’ lead stage manager, Gary Natoli, was sent on stage to collect the incorrect envelope.

[...] the error turned the “Moonlight” Best Picture win into a footnote, at least temporarily, and that does a huge disservice to a remarkable film that pulled off a stunning upset.

[...] it led to jokes and knee-jerk reactions that maybe all Oscar voting was tarnished, even though this mess had nothing to do with incorrect vote counts or tainted ballots.