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If, as I’ve heard suggested, the R-J’s fatuous fatwa against the Internet is another publicity stunt for its “increasingly excitable publisher,” it seems to be working. (The anti-kitty-blog jihad seems to have backfired, though.)
More importantly, the Los Angeles Times follows the money all the way back to Stephens Media HQ in Little Rock.
As I suspected, Righthaven LLC is a Stephens-funded front to which Stephens is selling its own content and then vacuuming up a portion of whatever proceeds are netted.
That explains why Sherman Frederick was practically begging for other papers to hire Righthaven in a posting on his blog (which isn’t worth linking to even if Righthaven weren’t likely to go all Salman Rushdie on your a$$.)
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Excerpt:
Stephens Media, LLC, is a diversified media company owned by the Stephens family of Arkansas.
The family owns one of the largest investment firms based outside New York City, Stephens, Inc., and operates a crude petroleum and natural gas production company, Stephens Production.
Stephens Media owns more than 50 small- and medium-sized newspapers in Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Hawaii.
Its largest publication is the Las Vegas Review Journal, the largest newspaper in Nevada with a daily circulation of more than 160,000.
Stephens Media also operates two news bureaus in Washington, D.C., and Little Rock, Arkansas. Stephens Media Interactive, a subsidiary, oversees the development and maintenance of web sites for the company's publications. Stephens Press, LLC, operates as the book publishing arm of Stephens Media.
Stephens Media - List of Newspapers
1111 West Bonanza Road (89106)
P.O. Box 70 (89125-0070)
Las Vegas, NV
Phone: 702.380.4500
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Excerpt - Alamo-Girl's Historic Downside Legacy
"The role of Jackson Stephens as financial backer of Governor Clinton has already been widely reported, as has his service to the BCCI's penetration of the American financial market (see TAS, November 1992).
But almost nothing has been said about the equally fascinating appearance of Refco in the affairs of the world's most corrupt bank. Refco and Stephens also maintained business ties, but it's an open question whether these involved the BCCI. It's also an open question whether Bill Clinton's brush with this world is influencing the federal government's efforts, or lack of effort, at getting to the bottom of the BCCI scandal.
It can definitely be said, however, that Refco's international operations have attracted the interest of the untanglers of BCCI's affairs. BCCI is not only the world's largest single bank fraud, but also the most ubiquitous. It was founded in the Persian Gulf in 1972 by a Pakistani visionary named Agha Hasan Abedi, who inspired a cult-like devotion from his officers, primarily Urdu-speaking Pakistanis; he also steadfastly ignored economic reality, and wound up losing more than $10 billion.
Increasingly desperate to cover his losses, he opened his doors to the world's vast underground economy, and BCCI became the central bank for terrorists, spies, arms dealers, and drug lords from Burma to Colombia.
At the same time, his agents tried to buy their way into every political elite they encountered--including the Arkansas establishment that was watching the rise of the Clintons. In November 1977, Abedi met in Little Rock with Jimmy Carter's confidant Bert Lance and investment banker Jackson Stephens, a power above and beyond Bill Clinton.
Out of this meeting came Abedi's celebrated takeover of an interstate banking chain based in Washington, D.C., patriotically renamed First American Bankshares and put in the hands of super-insider Clark Clifford. Coincidentally or not, Dittmer and Refco picked up a new client in the aftermath.
The far-sighted Abedi had cultivated Sheikh Zayed well before the mid-seventies boom in oil prices, taking the avid falconer on lavish bustard hunts in the wilds of Pakistan. (Abedi's agents also catered to the less wholesome tastes of the portly Crown Prince Khalifa.)
Zayed became the primary financial backer of the BCCI and still owns its remains. When Abedi decided to buy the Washington, D.C. bank that Jack Stephens was peddling, he advanced one of Sheikh Zayed's minor sons as a stockholder, with Darwaish acting as the boy's agent..
The deal apparently whetted Darwaish's appetite for American investments. Around October 1979, he and several assistants set up a Panamanian shell corporation to trade in the American commodities markets. They worked through a Swiss brokerage and placed their orders with Refco.
Through November, they transferred more than $100 million of Sheikh Zayed's money to America, primarily through BCCI headquarters in London.
Thank you, STARWISE: “My head spins.”
The LVRJ is the city’s conservative newspaper, whereas the Sun is NOT and is known for doing the RATS’ bidding.
Thanks for the ping!