turning a blind eye

N.F.L. Pressure Said to Lead ESPN to Quit Film Project

August 23, 2013 by NewsMaker

ESPN, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, pays the N.F.L. more than $1 billion a year to broadcast “Monday Night Football,” a ratings juggernaut and cherished source of revenue for Disney.

“Frontline,” the PBS public affairs series, and ESPN had been working for 15 months on a two-part documentary, to be televised in October. But ESPN’s role came under intense pressure by the league, the two people said, after a trailer for the documentary was released Aug. 6, the day that the project was discussed at a Television Critics Association event in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Last week, several high-ranking officials convened a lunch meeting at Patroon, near the league’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because they were prohibited by their superiors from discussing the matter publicly. It was a table for four: Roger Goodell, commissioner of the N.F.L.; Steve Bornstein, president of the NFL Network; John Skipper, ESPN’s president; and John Wildhack, ESPN’s executive vice president for production.

At the combative meeting, the people said, league officials conveyed their displeasure with the direction of the documentary, which is expected to describe a narrative that has been captured in various news reports over the past decade: the league turning a blind eye to evidence that players were sustaining brain trauma on the field that could lead to profound, long-term cognitive disability.

Greg Aiello, a spokesman for the N.F.L., said Friday morning that the lunch meeting was requested by ESPN several weeks ago. “At no time did we formally or informally ask them to divorce themselves from the project,” Aiello said. “We know the movie was happening and the book was happening, and we respond to them as best we can. We deny that we pressured them.”

Chris LaPlaca, an ESPN spokesman, said Thursday that ESPN’s decision was not based on any concerns about hurting its contractual relationship with the N.F.L. Rather, the network said in a statement, it was ending its official association with “Frontline” because it did not have editorial control of what appeared on the public television public affairs series.

But Raney Aronson-Rath, the deputy executive producer of “Frontline,” said that ESPN executives had for more than a year understood the ground rules of the collaboration: “Frontline” would keep editorial control of what it televised or put on its Web sites, and ESPN would have control of everything it televised or posted on the Web.

“We were about to share a cut of our film with them,” Aronson-Rath said, “and we welcomed their input.” But ESPN would not continue with the venture with “Frontline,” which has won 15 Peabody Awards.

Even with ESPN no longer identified as a collaborator on the “Frontline” films, they may retain a clear ESPN flavor because they are heavily based on the reporting of Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada, brothers and investigative reporters for ESPN. They are the authors of a book, “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” set to be published Oct. 8.

The two-part documentary is scheduled to run Oct. 8 and 15.

“We’re obviously disappointed because the partnership has been a phenomenal one, and we don’t totally understand what happened,” Fainaru-Wada said. Referring to ESPN, he added, “Nothing we’ve been told by anybody suggests that they’re backing off on the journalism.”

Aronson-Rath said that until last Friday, there had been no hint of trouble between “Frontline” and ESPN. She said that “Frontline” had worked “in lock step” with Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news, and Dwayne Bray, senior coordinating producer in ESPN’s news-gathering unit.

But in conversations last Friday and Monday with Doria and Bray, she was first told that ESPN did not want its logo to be connected to the films.

“It didn’t appear that it was their decision,” she said.

Aronson-Rath said that the Fainaru brothers started working with “Frontline” before ESPN was asked to collaborate. “The response we got from them was terrific, and everyone was very excited,” she said.

Brian Stelter, Ken Belson and Richard Sandomir contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/sports/football/nfl-pressure-said-to-prompt-espn-to-quit-film-project.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

In Filing, Casino Operator Admits Likely Violation of an Antibribery Law

In its annual regulatory report published by the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The disclosure comes amid an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the company’s business activities in China.

It is the company’s first public acknowledgment of possible wrongdoing. Ron Reese, a spokesman for the Sands, declined to comment further.

The company’s activities in mainland China, including an attempt to set up a trade center in Beijing and create a sponsored basketball team, as well as tens of millions of dollars in payments the Sands made through a Chinese intermediary, had become a focus of the federal investigation, according to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in August.

In its filing, the Sands said that it did not believe the findings would have material impact on its financial statements, or that they warranted revisions in its past statements. The company said that it was too early to determine whether the investigation would result in any losses. “The company is cooperating with all investigations,” the statement said.

The Sands’ activities in China came under the scrutiny of federal investigators after 2010, when Steven C. Jacobs, the former president of the company’s operations in Macau, filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in which he charged that he had been pressured to exercise improper leverage against government officials. He also accused the company of turning a blind eye toward Chinese organized crime figures operating in its casinos.

Mr. Adelson began his push into China over a decade ago, after the authorities began offering a limited number of gambling licenses in Macau, a semiautonomous archipelago in the Pearl River Delta that is the only place in the country where casino gambling is legal.

But as with many lucrative business spheres in China, the gambling industry on Macau is laced with corruption. Companies must rely on the good will of Chinese officials to secure licenses and contracts. Officials control even the flow of visitors, many of whom come on government-run junkets from the mainland.

As he maneuvered to enter Macau’s gambling market, Mr. Adelson, who is well known in the United States for his financial and political clout, became enmeshed in often intertwining political and business dealings. At one point he reportedly intervened on behalf of the Chinese government to help stall a House resolution condemning the country’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics on the basis of its human rights record.

In 2004, he opened his first casino there, the Sands Macau, the enclave’s first foreign owned gambling establishment. This was followed by his $2.4 billion Venetian in 2007.

Some Sands subsidiaries have also come under investigation by Chinese authorities for violations that included using money for business purposes not reported to the authorities, resulting in fines of over a million dollars.

Success in Macau has made Mr. Adelson, 78, one of the richest people in the world. He and his wife, Miriam, own 53.2 percent of Las Vegas Sands, the world’s biggest casino company by market value. Last year, Forbes estimated his fortune at $24.9 billion.

Mr. Adelson became the biggest single donor in political history during the 2012 presidential election, giving more than $60 million to eight Republican candidates, including Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, through “super PACs.” He presides over a global empire of casinos, hotels and convention centers.

Michael Luo and Thomas Gaffney contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/business/in-filing-casino-operator-admits-likely-violation-of-an-antibribery-law.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

N.F.L. Pressure Said to Lead ESPN to Quit Film Project

In Filing, Casino Operator Admits Likely Violation of an Antibribery Law

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