Time Warner to Probe Executive in 'Sugar Daddy' ScandalJune 20, 2006
TIM ARANGO, DAN MANGAN and HEATHER GILMORE
Time Warner (TWX) yesterday said it's probing whether its chief financial officer used company funds to act as a "sugar daddy" for a buxom young Brazilian woman accused of running a high-end Manhattan call-girl ring.
The probe was spurred by alleged madam Andrea Schwartz's claims that the married Wayne Pace, 56, showered her with gifts, clothes and cash, and even helped her buy an apartment during a four-year relationship that began after he met her in the bar of the Four Seasons hotel.
"While there have been no allegations of illegal behavior regarding Mr. Pace, and this appears to be a personal matter, we are taking appropriate steps to confirm, and Mr. Pace has assured us, that there was no misuse of corporate assets or other improprieties with respect to this matter that would affect Time Warner and its shareholders," the company said in a statement.
Schwartz, 31, denies charges that she operated a prostitution ring out of her $1.2 million West 58th Street condo, where police said clients were charged between $700 and $1,500 for a variety of sexual services. She remains jailed on Rikers Island. Pace's lawyer said Time Warner's investigation will not uncover any financial misdeeds by the executive, who last year earned $3.7 million in salary and bonus at the company, which owns CNN, Time Warner Cable, People magazine and other media entities.
"This matter is purely personal and has nothing to do with Time Warner, Time Warner funds or with Mr. Pace's position at Time Warner. Mr. Pace was not involved in any illegal conduct, and he was unaware of the alleged improper conduct now attributed to Ms. Schwartz," said Mark Pomerantz, Pace's lawyer.
"Mr. Pace deeply regrets the embarrassment he has caused his family and his employer," said Pomerantz, who has admitted his client knows Schwartz.
Pace's wife, Bobbi, was asked about the scandal yesterday outside a grocery store in Atlanta, where she and her husband of 35 years are pillars of local society.
"I have no comment whatsoever. Please leave me alone," a visibly shaken Bobbi Pace said frostily before climbing into her Mercedes-Benz and driving back to the couple's gated mansion in the exclusive neighborhood of Buckhead.
Meanwhile, the halls of the world's largest media company were abuzz with chatter about the weekend revelations that Pace, who showed up for work at the Time Warner Center, had been Schwartz's "sugar daddy."
"I'm pretty friggin' shocked," said one Time Warner insider. "Obviously he knew this woman. Obviously they had some kind of relationship."
Pace's lawyer has denied their relationship was "inappropriate."
Time Warner brass did not formally communicate with employees yesterday about the scandal.
"We're all sort of amazed about the lack of response from Time Warner," the insider said.
Sources said company boss Dick Parsons is sticking by Pace for the moment, pending the outcome of the internal probe.
Pace already had been expected to retire by the end of 2007.
If the probe clears Pace of any wrongdoing involving company funds, he would likely keep his job.
"The first thing he has to do is a mea culpa," said another insider. "What's incredibly sad about it is that he's such a great guy. He's a sweet, Southern guy."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200228,00.html
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Time Warner Assault Case
Time Warner removes HBO's Albrecht from chief executive postFriday, May 11, 2007
By David Bauder NEW YORK, AP
HBO chief executive Chris Albrecht was forced out by Time Warner following his weekend arrest on suspicion of assaulting his girlfriend in Las Vegas.
Albrecht, who said Tuesday he was taking a leave of absence to regain control of his alcoholism, said a day later that he was resigning as chairman and CEO "at the request of Time Warner."
His resignation also came after the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that HBO in 1991 paid a settlement of at least $400,000 to a subordinate and former lover of Albrecht's after she accused him of shoving and choking her.
"This is the right decision for the company," said Time Warner chairman and CEO Richard Parsons. "We thank Chris for all his contributions to Home Box Office over the years."
Albrecht had been chief of programming at HBO since 1995 and became CEO in 2002. He presided over the company's greatest successes with "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City," but the company was having trouble developing its next generation of hits.
Bill Nelson, HBO's chief operating officer, will run the company until a permanent chairman is selected, Time Warner said.
Albrecht was arrested for assault outside the MGM Grand's valet parking lot shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday, after officers reported seeing him fight with a woman identified as his girlfriend. On Tuesday, Albrecht said he had a drinking problem and, though he had been sober for 13 years, had recently slipped back into drinking.
Of his resignation on Wednesday, Albrecht said that he did it "for the benefit of my Home Box Office colleagues, recognizing that I cannot allow my personal circumstances to distract them from the business."
The Los Angeles Times story about the 1991 incident said Albrecht had been involved with a woman who worked for him at the time at HBO Independent Productions. The company reportedly paid the settlement following an encounter that occurred after the woman told Albrecht she was dating someone else.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/2007/05/11/109321/Time-Warner.htm
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When the Coalition Kills and CNN Lies
Thursday, 27 March 2003, 10:24 am
Column: Firas Al-Atraqchi
When the Coalition Kills and CNN Lies
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
The images of carnage and severed bodies are quite telling. On Wednesday, coalition fighter jets bombed what they claimed were missile launchers located 'near' civilian areas in Baghdad. Instead, they hit a bustling marketplace in the heart of Baghdad.
The BBC's Rageh Omar was one of the first western journalists to reach the area: "I saw human remains, bits of severed hands, bits of skull. Al-Shaab is a residential district. I saw people in apartment blocks throwing out their belongings attempting to leave. It was a scene of confusion as emergency services tried to rush to the scene.Our correspondents were unable to find an obvious military target in the area." ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2888429.stm)
Al Jazeera also made it to the scene and was able to film dead bodies being removed from the rubble, some dismembered, others covered entirely in dust and blood.
Images that were broadcast into the homes of more than 50 million Arabs in the Middle East and around the world.
CNN would not budge. They refused to acknowledge that such civilian deaths had occurred. Instead, they persisted in one of their banner headlines that "Iraqi civilians are being killed by Iraqis, not coalition".
They didn't show footage.
Al Jazeera reports that some 40 civilians have been killed with 300 wounded.
No such report from CNN. Instead, we are privy to regurgitated reports from 'embedded' journalists.
Finally, by the afternoon CNN dedicated a whole four seconds of coverage to the marketplace massacre.
Nevertheless, Al Jazeera continues to bring the impact of coalition 'precision' bombing on Iraqi civilians. An Al Jazeera crew in Basra filmed women and children being brought into a Basra hospital for treatment. Most were covered in blood. One child had his shoulder severed. This is the uprising the coalition has been talking about.
(Someone is irked by Al Jazeera. The Al Jazeera website has come under heavy hacker and denial of service attacks and effectively shut down. There are unconfirmed reports at this time that certain agencies may have been involved in the Al Jazeera attacks)
These images are incensing Arab public opinion, turning Arab populations against their leaders, and directly threatening U.S. and U.K. interests in the region.
For their part, the Pentagon says: "Any casualty that occurs, any death that occurs, is a direct result of Saddam Hussein's policies".
The Iraqis who once opposed Saddam, but have now vowed to oppose the coalition forces might disagree.
- Firas Al-Atraqchi can be contacted at: firas6544@rogers.com
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0303/S00253.htm
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TIME WARNER CEO RICHARD PARSONS COVERUP OF MURDER-FRAUD & CORRUPTION
TIME WARNER-CNN-FBI HARASMENT AGAINST THE WATCHDOG GROUP
TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENT CEO RICHARD PARSONS (212)-484-8000
The Watchdog group website:
http://www.freewebs.com/govwebsites
http://www.freewebs.com/cnnciafront
COMPLAINT against Time Warner for damages in the amount of two billion, six hundred twenty million, eight hundred thousand lawful United States dollars ($2,620,800,000.00). See Seventh Amendment. HEE HEE
http://www.supremelaw.org/copyrite/aol.com/judicial.default.htm
http://www.supremelaw.org/cc/aol/index.htm
TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENT CORRUPTION & COVER-UPS
http://murderoususjudges.com/updates.html
"It also appears that CEO Parsons is now using his political influence with President Bush to head off a government investigation looking into the failed murder attempt of filmmaker Gyorgy Fodor, as well as bank frauds and corrupt influence on a large number of U.S. federal judges, including the Chief Justice of the United States, all perpetrated by AOL Time Warner executives, during Parsons' tenure as President of the Company. No wonder that CEO Persons is calling the murderous Gerald Levin "a teacher, and a mentor."
Years before the Enron scandal broke, Filmmaker Gyorgy Fodor provided proof to Chief Justice Rehnquist that one of AOL Time Warner Inc's banks, Morgan Guaranty Trust, A J. P. Morgan subsidiary, conspired with AOL Time Warner to forge back dated, bogus checks, purportedly showing non-existent financial transactions, submitted into evidence in a Federal court case, to help AOL Time Warner Inc. to avoid a fifty million dollar liability.
Here is what Dr. David Crown, former Chief of the CIA's Questioned Document Laboratory, stated under oath regarding one of the checks forged by AOL Time Warner Inc.: "Incredible. Banks don't change their bank stamps from the 19th to the 22nd, and if they accept money on the 20th, they don't process it the day before."
MUST READ LINKS
http://www.ucop.edu/news/archives/2003/apr14art1.htm
http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php?fuseaction=nb.story&story_id=3729&nb_date=2003-04-18
http://www.anomalynews.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=403&t=403
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/2122/1/129/
http://com.hilbert.edu/students/papers/carolina-1999/1999corpmedia-01.html
http://www.prisoners.com/collab.html
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2005-38.htm
http://sfog.playride.com/lawsuit.html
http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/washingtonwatch/adelphia.html
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Pull CNN's Plug!
By Gary Aldrich (04/18/03)
Imagine you're living in a totalitarian state where a dictator controls what you see or hear. Imagine being held captive in a room for a minimum of an hour while being forced to watch and listen to whatever the dictator decides is "news."
You have no choice because you're not allowed to change the channel. You can't turn the sound up, down, or off. Becoming alarmed, you find that there is nobody present who knows how to turn it off.
Even in an emergency, when people need to be paying close attention to other information, the dictator's propaganda drones on and on.
Becoming annoyed, you wonder if your glassy-eyed neighbors are aware that the dictator and his state controlled media are lying to them. ...
Continues: http://www.americandaily.com/article/1441
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http://www.alternet.org/story/9972/
Corruption Perception Index #12
Public Campaign. Posted October 24, 2000.
* Date that Time Warner announced that the company would no longer make soft money contributions to the political parties: 11/17/99.
* Date that Timothy Boggs, the company's senior vice president for global public policy, gave $20,000 in soft money to the Democratic National Committee (DNC): 2/28/2000.
* Number of issues where, because of foregoing soft money contributions, Time Warner lobbyist Timothy Boggs then said "we're going to have to work harder to make our case on the merits": "a few."
* The amount at stake in Time Warner's proposed merger with AOL: $183 billion.
* Date of announcement of planned merger: 1/10/2000.
* Date that Timothy Boggs, the company's senior vice president for global public policy, gave $20,000 in soft money to the Democratic National Committee (DNC): 2/28/2000.
* Date that the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hosted a hearing on the Time Warner/AOL merger: 3/2/2000.
* Date that Robert A. Daly, an executive with Time Warner's Warner Brothers subsidiary, gave $50,000 in soft money to the DNC: 4/28/2000.
* Date that Richard Parsons, Time Warner's president, gave $50,000 in soft money to the Republican National Committee: 6/30/2000.
* Total reported Time Warner campaign contributions -- PAC, individual, and soft -- to federal candidates and parties for the 2000 elections, with several months left to go: $1.3 million.
* Total amount Time Warner contributed in the entire 1996 election cycle, before company took pledge not to give soft money -- $1.4 million.
* Status of planned merger, which needs federal regulatory approval: pending.
For more information (and for detailed sourcing on these statistics) go to www.publicampaign.org.
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Time Warner To Comply With Wiretap Law
Mar 17, '04
rekkanoryo writes "Time Warner Cable is taking steps to comply with the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, which requires telecommunications providers 'to help police conduct electronic surveilance.' Note that broadband providers are not yet required to comply with the law, but the FBI has stated its desire to force broadband providers under the law's jurisdiction. Invasion of privacy anyone?"
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/03/17/1621208.shtml?tid=103&tid=126&tid=158&tid=95&tid=99
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Link to Scandal Lays Low AOL Time Warner
By Simon English in New York
24/08/2002
A barrage of fresh allegations against AOL Time Warner sent the shares plunging yesterday as it emerged that investigators are probing links between the media giant and two of America's disgraced telecom companies.
AOL Time Warner executives are also under scrutiny for cashing in millions of dollars in shares at a time when the company now admits it might have exaggerated advertising revenues. There were rumours on Wall Street that the internet-to-magazine behemoth might also be forced to make another writedown in the value of its assets. ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2002/08/24/cnaol24.xml
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Democrats, Corruption and Loopholes
... Democrats must have a cadre of people working “round the clock” to find ways to skirt the state Ethics Laws.
Take this example.
Lobbyists in North Carolina for Time Warner Cable – just to pick an example mentioned in The News and Observer – are banned from contributing to Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue’s campaign for Governor.
So, Perdue motors up I-40 and solicits their ‘brothers-in-law’ in Washington. Time Warner’s lobbyists in Congress. All legal. But pretty clearly undercutting the law banning lobbyist donations Perdue supports. ...
http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ArticleView/mid/364/articleId/760/Democrats-Corruption-and-Loopholes.aspx
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CNN COMMITS FRAUD AGAINST ADVERTISERS BROADCASTING FALSE NEWS STORIES
'Bert Kinzey Tells The "Truth" About CNN - BreakTheChain.org
http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/kinzeycnn.html
I explained how the news media, particularly CNN, inaccurately reported the war, misstating the facts, and in many cases deliberately telling outright lies. I dedicated an entire chapter to a dishonest CNN report about the B-1 bomber and evaluated its inaccuracies line by line. I illustrated that the report was full of lies, and these were about clearly established facts and not about someone's opinion.
When the Coalition Kills and CNN Lies
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0303/S00253.htm
CNN would not budge. They refused to acknowledge that such civilian deaths had occurred. Instead, they persisted in one of their banner headlines that "Iraqi civilians are being killed by Iraqis, not coalition".
They didn't show footage.
CNN's lies
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cssn/cssn-list/2002/02/00008.html
The 3,500 people at the Reclaim the Streets rally just didn't count. The 8,000-10,000+ people (including RTS) at the Another World Is Possible(AWIP) march also didn't count. The police storming the crowd without provacation isn't worth mentioning. The 1,000-2,000 Falun Gong protesters didn't matter! Only the ANSWER folk seemed to have been counted! Outrageous and ridiculous! The NY Times is slightly better.
CNN lies
http://www.centellas.org/miguel/archives/000247.html
in my part of the world, cnn and other mainstream u.s media are considered (popularly) as giving a skewed and judgemental view of most issues... considering how cnn is basically a corporate organization, one shouldnt expect all so much... corporate journalism and journalists will not stake anything in the search for truth and other such baloney
Pull CNN’s Plug!
http://www.americandaily.com/article/1441
CNN continually lies to that audience who are no less captive than zoo chimpanzees. CNN admits that they lie about important things; matters that can and do impact on our national security. I think that CNN mostly lies about corrupt and abusive dictators and politicians in faraway lands, and sometimes right here at home. CNN tends to accept lies told by Hard-Left politicians, government officials and dictators like Saddam Hussein, and Fidel Castro. They say they do this to keep access, and to protect their reporters.
How CNN edited Blix's transcript (UPDATED)(a MUST READ )
http://danhon.com/ec/mtarchives/000411.shtml
For comparison, here is the text of the report at the UN and Fox News. Those who are entertaining the notion that perhaps the BBC's version is the inaccurate one can rest easy that CNN's transcript also differs from that made available at the UN. For posterity, there's a cached copy of the CNN article here, in case it's updated over at CNN.
THE CNN SEMANTIC STING
The most trusted name in news, but not the most trustworthy!
http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/cnn_sting.html
Lesson learned: The viewing public must think for themselves. They must begin to ask the right questions and expect credible answers. Americans have the right to re-discover what true journalism is all about. It has been missing for so long that millions upon millions of Americans trust a pathetic organization like CNN to keep them informed.
Lies, More Lies, and CNN's Lies
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2278
I believe that CNN’s actions have been as damaging to democracy and the free world as any of the vilest propaganda ever spread by Josef Goebbels, Josef Stalin, the Grand Mufti, Yasser Arafat, or Saddam Hussein. For twelve years CNN hid the truth, covered-up facts, and fabricated ridiculous moral-equivalency scenarios. Millions of people around the world have been influenced by these lies and deceptions.
MOSAIC OF LIES
Tracing the pattern of WMD lies back to the source
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j070903.html
The author of the Post piece was silent on the question of which foreign government. However, CNN was quick to cite government officials who said:
"They got the documents from the intelligence service of another country, which was not Britain and was not Israel, which they will not name."
That was another lie.
NPR Criticizes Own Reporter - UN Journalist Took Money from Ted Turner
March 3, 2005
WASHINGTON -- In response to criticism from Accuracy in Media (AIM), taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) has announced that its U.N. correspondent, Linda Fasulo, acted inappropriately in accepting money from Ted Turner to write a pro-U.N. book. NPR spokesman David Umansky says that "no reporter will be able to accept similar subsidies in the future," the network reported. NPR noted that "critics say the deal proves she's too cozy with the UN." Fasulo also covers the U.N. for NBC News and MSNBC.
AIM editor Cliff Kincaid said that a total of $26,000 from pro-U.N. sources went to Fasulo, a reporter who is supposed to objectively cover the U.N., in "a conflict of interest that calls into question her coverage of U.N. issues."
The NPR News Code of Ethics and Practices requires that its reporters avoid "actual and apparent conflicts of interest or engaging in outside activities, public comment or writing that calls into question our ability to report fairly on a subject." In Fasulo's case, she was reporting on the U.N. for NPR as she was accepting money from Ted Turner's U.N. Foundation to do her pro-U.N. book.
During a February 8 appearance on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor Kincaid said, "The problem is that any news organization that is expected to cover the United Nations objectively should not have a U.N. correspondent taking money…" Kincaid continued, "the acknowledgement section of the book only says that she acknowledges generous financial support from the U.N. Foundation set-up by Turner and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. No amounts were given." He continued, "When The New York Sun followed up on [AIM's] original report by asking how much money she actually got, she didn't want to say."
http://www.freewebs.com/timewarner/
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May 12th, 2007...12:18 am
UPDATED:New postal rate scheme written by Time Warner threatens existence of small magazines
This 30-40% rate increase for small magazines is yet another assault on the intent of the founding fathers and long-standing American tradition. It is also a blow to the small business man, to our literary and political discourse, and to freedom of speech. This will be the knockout punch to many small but important journals.
A great Bushco/GOP twofer: Cosmo, Forbes, People and the corporate profits will be spared, and the liberal exchange of ideas will be stifled. We have to get Congress to act.
In late April, the 26-year-old publisher of the independent music and fiction magazine Verbicide got word that starting on July 15, his shipping rates would increase by somewhere between 30 and 40 percent. [while the large-circulation publications will pay perhaps 10% more]
“It’s not going be the thing that kills me,” he says via phone from his office in Vermont, “but coupled with the lack of advertisements and the general slump in print publications, it could be the thing that pushes me over the edge….
Ellis’s sentiment is shared by plenty of other independent publications such as the Nation, the National Review and Mother Jones, who are stupefied that they’ll be paying more in periodical postage while larger publications will pay only around 10 percent more. Then again, maybe it’s not all that surprising once you learn where the proposal originated: Time Warner.
The proposal was accepted by the Postal Regulatory Commission on March 19, in lieu of a universal increase that the U.S. Postal Service suggested — an unprecedented milestone that implies something even scarier: the privatization of the Postal Service, which could, in effect, undo 215 years of universal postal policy…
“They got lobbied by these billionaire publishers — and that said enough to them.” He continues: “They aren’t concerned with free press and keeping it affordable. Whether or not the postal rates are high or low, at least they’ve always gone up the same amount for everyone until now, whether you’re Time Warner or my company, Scissor Press.”
And that’s not the only problem for small publishers. In addition to the price of stamps increasing from 39 to 41 cents, the Postal Service is also discontinuing international surface mail and raising the rates for media mail, both of which were created to make the distribution of information affordable and accessible.
…
Last year, the last independent magazine distributor, Independent Press Association, went out of business and took many smaller magazines off the newsstands — and now these latest post hikes could make the prospect of independent publishing even more dismal. “I don’t think we deserve this,” Ellis admits with a sigh. “I feel like I’ve worked really hard, and I’ve been running a really honest business for a long time, and instead of getting some respect, the industry and the government are turning their back on me.”
In fact, at this point, he’s considering giving up the magazine altogether — a sentiment that’s likely to be echoed by many of his peers who also lack six-digit circulation numbers or parent companies. “
This is very bad, and very un-American; the founding fathers intended that the postal service would play an important role in disseminating information, and by that they didn’t mean the shit that TimeWarner turns out. This is another blow to the publishing industry, particularly that part that makes ideas and literature available.
Please write to your Congresspeople to get this reversed.
UPDATE: From the Boston Globe:
The Nation says its costs could jump by $500,000. But this isn’t just whining about the rising costs of doing business. This is a clash pitting big-time publishers against small journals that enrich the public debate far more than their modest budgets suggest. …
The Postal Service’s mission, set by federal law, is to “bind the nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people.” It has a history of protecting the spread of information. So whether grandma lives down the street or in another time zone, a stamp for her birthday card costs the same.
Price protection has also been crucial for small magazines, helping them to add politically and socially diverse voices to the public arena. “In short, the post office and press together constituted the most important mechanism for the dissemination of public information at least until the Civil War,” Richard B. Kielbowicz writes in his book “News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s.”
Now, of course, there’s the Internet, which makes publishing seem easy and cheap. But as The Nation’s president, Teresa Stack, says, mailing out copies to paying subscribers is still largely how small magazines make money. Web content is often an extra that doesn’t generate income. Without income these publications can’t survive, and the public loses out when those voices are silenced.
Congress should take a fresh look, and pursue a more public -minded rate plan. The post office is no longer a federal agency, and it does have to support itself. But the country still needs a mail service that protects public access to as much information as possible.
http://seesdifferent.wordpress.com/2007/05/12/new-postal-rate-scheme-written-by-time-warner-threatens-existence-of-small-magazines/
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