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Olbermann Will Return to ESPN

July 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

ESPN is expected to announce on Wednesday that the former network mainstay Keith Olbermann, who contentiously departed in 1997, will return to host a one-hour, nightly show for ESPN2 later this year, according to three executives with knowledge of the deal but not authorized to speak about it publicly.

Olbermann, 54, became renowned for co-anchoring ESPN’s “SportsCenter” with Dan Patrick — arguably the most auspicious pairing in the history of the show or the network. He left the show briefly to help launch ESPN2 in October 1993.

The move to bring Olbermann back after a 16-year absence was the result of 14 months of intense discussion within ESPN and its parent, the Walt Disney Company.

Within ESPN, there was concern about asking Olbermann back because he left the network under emotionally charged circumstances and because it was feared by some that Olbermann had become too politicized as the host of his interim MSNBC program “Countdown,” which aired from 2003 through January 2011.

 On his new show, Olbermann will be free to discuss matters other than sports, including pop culture and current events, but not politics, the two-year pact specifies.

While some ESPN insiders reportedly voiced the opinion that Olbermann was part of the network’s past, not its future, his star quality is almost unmatched in the sports television arena; he seems to draw a crowd. Rumors had been bubbling for weeks that ESPN would put aside the difficulties of the past and invite Olbermann back.

Some of Olbermann’s years since leaving ESPN have been professionally stormy, but controversy has always been part of his public persona. While some of his other network tenures had rocky periods, and some ended badly, his sports knowledge and on-air charisma have never been questioned.

ESPN executives said Olbermann will help it face the challenge presented by the launch of Fox Sports 1, a rival all-sports network that just announced plans for a potentially similar series to star Regis Philbin, 82.

Richard Sandomir contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/sports/after-16-year-absence-olbermann-is-said-to-be-returning-to-espn-to-host-show.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Report on BBC Inquiry Into Sex Abuse to Be Released Wednesday

December 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Nick Pollard, a former BBC reporter who went on to lead one of the BBC’s chief competitors, the commercial Sky News channel, led the inquiry. The trust that supervises the BBC asked him to determine whether the broadcaster’s management erred when its flagship public affairs program, “Newsnight,” abandoned an investigation of accusations against Mr. Savile, once one of the BBC’s biggest entertainment stars.

Mr. Savile died in October 2011 at age 84. The “Newsnight” investigation was nearly ready for broadcast in early December 2011 when it was called off. In the weeks after the decision was made, several BBC holiday broadcasts paid tribute to Mr. Savile’s decades of stardom without mentioning allegations against him that had circulated for years.

Mr. Pollard’s report will be a watershed moment in what the chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, has called the biggest crisis in the public broadcaster’s 90-year history.

The scale of the allegations against Mr. Savile, including accusations that he abused some of his under-age victims on BBC premises, has shocked the British public and sharply eroded confidence in the BBC. The broadcaster has been a mainstay of British life, admired at home and abroad for its impartiality and high journalistic standards — and financed by license fees paid by anyone in Britain who owns a television.

Making matters worse, after another rival, ITV, broadcast a report about the cancellation of the “Newsnight” investigation, “Newsnight” went ahead with another program reporting false claims that a prominent retired politician, Alistair McAlpine, abused minors at a children’s home in North Wales in the 1970s and ’80s.

The BBC later repudiated the claims and agreed to pay Mr. McAlpine nearly $300,000. ITV separately agreed to pay Mr. McAlpine more than $200,000 for a program of its own that inculpated him. Both settlements were ratified at a high court hearing in London on Tuesday, where lawyers for the two broadcasters apologized.

“The disgraceful allegations should never have been aired,” David Attfield, a BBC lawyer, told the court. He said the broadcaster “accepts it cannot put back the clock and wishes to express its genuine remorse for the harm it has caused” Mr. McAlpine.

A preliminary report into the McAlpine debacle by Ken MacQuarrie, the director of BBC Scotland, concluded that the editorial management of “Newsnight” had already been weakened by suspensions and other disruptions caused by the Savile affair. A fuller version of Mr. MacQuarrie’s report is scheduled to be published together with the Pollard report on Wednesday.

As Mr. Pollard has been looking into what happened at the BBC, a parallel police inquiry has been trying to establish what Mr. Savile did, and has received a torrent of allegations against him. The police inquiry, called Operation Yewtree, broadened into a wide-ranging investigation of sexual abuse allegations in the broadcasting, entertainment and pop music worlds of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, the milieu in which Mr. Savile gained fame.

Police spokesmen say they have tallied more than 500 complaints in the Yewtree inquiry, more than 30 of them involving allegations of rape. An “unprecedented number” of those complaints involve Mr. Savile personally, a spokesman said. Others involve Mr. Savile’s associates, and still others involve people unconnected with Mr. Savile. So far, the police have arrested and questioned six people in the matter, but no charges have been filed.

One of those arrested was Max Clifford, perhaps Britain’s best-known publicist, who grew wealthy representing leading entertainers, politicians, sports stars and other celebrities. Mr. Clifford, 69, has denied any wrongdoing. He has said that many of his clients were “frightened to death” by the police investigation and by the risk of a “witch hunt” into a time when sexual mores were notoriously uninhibited in the entertainment world.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/world/europe/pollard-report-bbc-jimmy-savile-sexual-abuse-inquiry.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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All-American, Floor to Roof? Not So Simple

September 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

He is trying to do just that with a new home here on a side street a few blocks from downtown. But it is not as easy as it sounds.

Some things are simple enough. Wood literally grows on trees, of course, especially here in forested western Montana. And no one ships cement or concrete mix any farther than needed.

After that it can get tough. In a global economy, even American-assembled appliances probably have at least some foreign made or mined components, Mr. Lewendal said.

Tiny components like nails, screws and light bulbs, mundane but crucial, are significantly cheaper if bought from China or other developing nations. High-end frills — which tend to be imported, like Italian marble or mahogany — may be doomed to stay on the dock or in the showroom.

And all that does not even address the question of whether using illegal immigrant labor, a mainstay of the construction industry around the nation, counts as foreign.

“Part of the impact of the recession has been healthy, in making people rethink what housing is for,” said Mr. Lewendal, who conceded that perfection in his goal is probably not possible. The locally made cement, he suspects, could have some imported chemicals, for example, and the recycled glass from Yellowstone National Park that he laid down as a base layer under the garage could well have contained an imported beer bottle or two. As for his workers, he said, they are all here legally.

“The point is that little things can add up,” he said. “I think we could solve this recession if everyone shifted just 5 percent of their purchases to U.S.-made products.”

In some ways, it is an old idea, echoing a hard-hat refrain from the 1970s or earlier: Buy American. In other ways, though, it is as current as the environmental message that hangs over every urban farmers’ market: Buy Local.

Mr. Lewendal said that because the 2,280-square-foot, three-bedroom house he is building will conform to high energy-conservation standards — more points are awarded for materials obtained close to the site — the economic and social implications all blur. And in a brutally competitive local market, he added, pitching all-American could also be a marketing niche in tune with the times.

“I don’t see any politics to it at all,” said Mr. Lewendal, 51, who described himself as a conservative and is the chairman of the local homebuilder association’s green building committee. “It’s about jobs.”

The house’s owner, Kat Quinn, also has a complex agenda. For health reasons, she wanted a house built to strict environmental standards, and after she met Mr. Lewendal and heard about the all-American home idea, she became convinced that buying American could put pressure on foreign companies to raise wages for their workers.

She said she does plan, though, on having a Canadian-made trampoline in the house, to use in therapy for a daughter with cystic fibrosis.

Bozeman’s economy was not devastated across the board by the recession. Montana State University, a big local employer, created a base of stability, and the proximity to Yellowstone, about 90 minutes south, kept up a flow of tourists.

But where bad times bit, they bit hard, and that was in construction. The vacation- and second-home market that plumbers, roofers and framers depended on dwindled to almost nothing starting in 2007, taking out more than a third of all the construction work here in Gallatin County in just 24 months, according to state figures.

Justin Tribbitt, a former general contractor now working in computer software, lost his company; three of his five former employees left town. Mike Wilhelm, an electrician, went from six employees to two. Rock Larocca, also a contractor, survived with the aid of a chainsaw, helping cut down trees killed by a beetle infestation.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=efa4ccf265711e07b3f8e4023f403014

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