Sun Valley Media Conference Photos: Mogulmania Day 1! (SLIDESHOW)

The annual Allen & Company summer media conference kicked off in Sun Valley, Idaho Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning the attendees were decked out in their finest mogul casual looks.

Follow the news coming out of the conference — like Rupert Murdoch's thoughts on Twitter and Bob Iger's thoughts on paid online content — at our Sun Valley 2009 page, and check out our gallery of images from day 1 below (courtesy AP):

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Perhaps the year's buzziest guest, LeBron James, walks the grounds WITHOUT his name tag. Not photographed is his son, with whom he's been spotted riding bikes.

Comments

[jenny42]

They look so old and their faces are falling.... with all this money isn't there something they can do to help that...sigh

[curiousasheck]

Megalomania Day 1

[chevyval]

These people aren't going to decide anything for me. But I hope they spend alot of
money on art.

[littlepuffycloud]

Looking at all these people has given me a bad case of the squirts...

[voltage356]

How we continue to brainwash the world.

[ramblingjohnny]

They could have held it in Apalachin for history sake! lolll
You know if all the big player of any other industry were to meet like that the Justice department would probably investigate charge of collusion, price fixing not to mention RICO.

[jalowe1957]

Doesn't all this remind you of the Bohemian Grove, where the male power elite sneak off and get together to streak in the woods and engage in God-knows-what?

[ratcityreprobate]

Actually, it reminds me more of a meeting of all the mafia bosses though there is some similarity with the Bohemian Grove.

[laxfamily]

not a very diverse crowd... one woman, the rest middle-aged white men. Boy, times sure have not changed since I started working in 1978!

[Agbar]

Don't forget Lebron James. They show him in day 2's photo's. But still, pretty pasty.

[middleofeverywhere]

True story: I worked in the Entertainment Department at DIsney years ago, and they flew us to Sun Valley to do a skit at one of the meetings during Michael Eisner's time. Now, it was a 5 minute skit and not very good. We all were flown there, were each given our own condo to stay in, all the food and alcoholic beverages we could stuff inside us, and upon our arrival were given credit cards that could be used anywhere in the resort--book stores, massages, jewelry shops--anywhere. Every single person there, wives, participants, etc got this card and there was no limit on it. Until you've seen it, you have no idea the hideous Roman Orgy by Caligula it is.

[Jazz88105]

What is the point of this conference and why should we care except that we still don't see to many women at the top.

[ratcityreprobate]

This is where they divide up the market and decide how to screw the public.

[middleofeverywhere]

There is no point to it. I think it's like going to a high school reunion. Day to day they don't necessarily get to sit in a hot tub with every person in the world as rich as they are--in Sun Valley, they do. I hope when more women do get to the top, they'll be smart enough not to want to hang out with these guys.

[nemain]

Did it EVER occur to you that there are not a lot of sinister women willing to participate in this revolting march of wealth and unbridled power? Please redirect your energy and do your homework on these indiviuals. Hopefully women have evolved enough to NOT be a part of this!

[MurrayAbraham]

"Follow the gathering on twitter"
Oh yes please, moguls, let me live your life through twitter because mine sucks.

[ccpostman]

A full blown recession is on and the terminally rich media boys are still getting together to try and figure out how to $crew us out of the few pennies we have lift.

Enough!

[LeeCalif]

But why is Meg Whitman there?

She's a quitter, too.

[the964kid]

Good to see a group of old rich white guys still getting together to discuss how to continue amassing their fortunes. Now I can sleep at night.

[dandypuddin]

Looks like the Senate. A bunch of rich, old gray haired white men. And a woman who probably has to act just like them.

[njgal4obama]

Can anyone tell me why FOX Business News is advertising itself on MSNBC?

Why is the sister station of CNBC promoting its own competition?

[Pleneras]

MICHAEL PARENTI "INVENTING REALITY" on the Media:

Monopoly Media Manipulation
May 2001

http://www.michaelparenti.org/MonopolyMedia.html

In a capitalist “democracy” like the United States, the corporate news media faithfully reflect the dominant class ideology both in their reportage and commentary. At the same time, these media leave the impression that they are free and independent, capable of balanced coverage and objective commentary. How they achieve these seemingly contradictory but legitimating goals is a matter worthy of study. Notables in the media industry claim that occasional inaccuracies do occur in news coverage because of innocent error and everyday production problems such as deadline pressures, budgetary restraints, and the difficulty of reducing a complex story into a concise report. Furthermore, no communication system can hope to report everything, hence selectivity is needed.

[Pleneras]

Parenti contined...

Attack and Destroy the Target

When omission proves to be an insufficient mode of censorship and a story somehow begins to reach larger publics, the press moves from artful avoidance to frontal assault in order to discredit the story. In August 1996, the San Jose Mercury News, drawing from a year-long investigation, ran an in-depth series about the CIA-contra crack shipments that were flooding East Los Angeles. Holding true to form, the major media mostly ignored the issue. But the Mercury News series was picked up by some local and regional newspapers, and was flashed across the world on the Internet copiously supplemented pertinent documents and depositions supporting the charges against the CIA. African American urban communities, afflicted by the crack epidemic, were up in arms and wanted to know more. The story became difficult to ignore. So, the major media began an all-out assault. A barrage of hit pieces in the Washington Post and New York Times and on network television and PBS assured us that there was no evidence of CIA involvement, that the Mercury News series was “bad journalism,” and that its investigative reporter Gary Webb was irresponsibly playing on the public's gullibility and conspiracy mania. By a process of relentless attack and shameless mendacity, the major media exonerated the CIA from any involvement in drug trafficking.