Dan Cox, on special assignment for FishbowlLA, covering the 2008 Sun Valley Media Conference.

As Hollywood mavens drifted into Sun Valley, a few were eager to talk.

Universal Studios COO and President Ron Meyer, asked whether Hollywood was making too many movies, said: "I'm part of that Hollywood, so I'd be criticizing myself."

Meyer, a regular at Sun Valley, said he's just staying for a couple of days this time. While holding court before about a dozen reporters and photographers, Meyer smiled when CAA agents Bryan Lourd and Richard Lovett complained that he was blocking there way as they exited the Sun Valley Lodge driveway.

"Ronnie, get out of the way," Lourd yelled.

Asked for a comment himself, Lourd said: "Why would you ever want to talk to me? There are much more important people here."

Lourd is one of a handful of Hollywood agents, including William Morris Agency's Jim Wiatt, United Talent Agency's Jim Berkus and ICM agent Jeff Berg.

Wiatt was the first to introduce former Viacom chief Tom Freston to the assembled media. "We rode in on the plane together," Wiatt said.

• In the strange bedfellows department, the New York Times and the New York Post, always bitter enemies in the news arena, ended up splitting the cost of a Sun Valley Lodge suite for Times reporter Tim Arango and his girlfriend, Post photographer Victoria Will. The couple, who ironically met at Sun Valley four years ago, have been dating ever since.

Sam Zell strikes again: the Chicago Tribune says it will "eliminate around 80 of its current 578 newsroom positions by the end of August and reduce the number of pages it publishes by 13 percent to 14 percent each week."

Don't think of them as layoffs, kids. Think of them as an opportunity to spend more time communing with Lee Abrams' world of sound.

It's a slow week in Newsville, but not so slow that the media can't try (try!!!) to shake things up a bit. When Barack Obama's plane had to make an emergency landing yesterday, the media were there to ask the one question that was on its collective mind: "How can I make a story out of this?"

See if you can guess what angle this one reporter was going for with her story. We'll give you a clue. She asked asked Obama four questions. Here were three of them:

Were you frightened? Were you worried? You got a little nervous?

Each time, Obama shook his head. Not so much at the question as at the notion that he'd answer such a question. Nice try, though.

-- Via ERSNews.com

Orange Coast Magazine recently came out with its "Best Of" issue. We usually don't read "Best Of" issues because rarely do they reflect the actual "best" of anything. They should be called "The Stuff Our Reporters Have Heard Of" issue. But we digress.

Some of our friends at The Liberal OC were granted a superlative from the esteemed publication: Best Liberal Blog in Orange County. This made us laugh. Hard. So we caught up with the best liberal blogger in Orange County, Dan Chmielewski to talk about the distinction.

Congratulations! Thanks. They named everyone else (from the blog) except me. And I post the most.

Ooh. Sorry. So, not to be nit-picky, but "Best Liberal Blog in Orange County?" Aren't you the only liberal blog in Orange County? There are other Liberal blogs in OC, but they are not very good or are one-person shops.

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Dan Cox, on special assignment for FishbowlLA, covering the 2008 Sun Valley Media Conference.

Though Allen & Company are extremely tight-lipped about everything of interest at the Sun Valley Media Conference, a few small bits and pieces are leaking out on the first day.

A list of attendees surfaced and included such mega-moguls as Paul G. Allen of Vulcan Inc., Emilio Azcarraga of Grupo Televisa, National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, CNN's Anderson Cooper, independent writer Ken Auletta, BET chairman and CEO Debra L. Lee, Diane von Furstenberg of her eponymous studio, National Basketball Association Commissioner David J. Stern and Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

Weirder still was the inclusion of celebrity chef Rachael Ray, of Watch Entertainment Inc. The assembled media standing outside the Sun Valley Lodge joke that she might be here to cook dinner for all these moguls.

In true Allen & Co. behavior, the list of those invited also had a schedule, which carefully omitted anything specific with just early morning discussion or meeting events labeled as simply "Presentation." After that came, "White Water Raft Trip," "Golf at the Sun Valley Golf Course" and "Biking, Fly-Fishing, Hiking, Trail Rides" and "Yoga."

Those moguls sure know how to do it right.

Today's question was:

What's eating the L.A. Times? Would the paper be better off outside the Tribune Co. empire? All week, Marc Cooper and Patrick Frey discuss the future of The Times and journalism in Southern California.

The 'readers' respond. Some say it's the Chandler family's fault. Some blame their paper delivery people. Some blame Sam Zell.

Then there were these comments:

For years you have encouraged the increased immigration of Third World people and their numerous offspring to this area. Now you have a population that cannot read a sophisticated English-language newspaper.

And these:

Advocacy journalism is the reason why I stopped subscribing. The only difference between the Times and Lou Dobbs is that Dobbs is less secretive. With Southern California being on the illegal immigration frontline, there is a great story to tell from the perspective of our economic, political, human-behavioral, and education systems, a portent for the nation. However, as Lou Dobbs reports only a certain view, so does the Times. For example, last week, the NY Times and others reported that illegal immigration was the EU's biggest concern. The Times did not. While La Raza and others may protest Dobbs, we protest the Times' by unsubscribing.

And these:

It's simple. We don't trust what you write and you don't have the guts to just admit you are pushing an agenda.. Your PRO-Illegal immigration stance is a real turn off to your subscribers, which made me cancel my subscription.. How can the Times be going under there are plenty of Illegals to subcribe now, so you don't need me paying for subscriptions.

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Dan Cox, on special assignment for FishbowlLA, covering the 2008 Sun Valley Media Conference.

All's quiet on the Western Front for Sun Valley. The conference doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but hundreds of executives, moguls and their families are dribbling in today. A conference shuttle driver said they're expecting 395 people on the hotel grounds, which is nearly double the number from years past.

Already the few execs at the conference are buzzing about the LiveNation $70 million deal with Canadian rock band Nickelback, which was announced today.

One Allen & Company employee said he was eager to see an interview by Tom Brokaw, who, in between stints on "Meet the Press," has been invited back again this year. And Gordon Crawford of Capital Research and Management is reportedly thinking about backing Carl Icahn's bid for a Yahoo! deal with Microsoft. Crawford's company owns 16.3% of Yahoo! Crawford is a regular the Sun Valley soiree.

From thehollywoodreporter.com:

CNN talkmeister Larry King will be enshrined by the City of Los Angeles on Thursday with a "Larry King Square" at the intersection of Sunset and Cahuenga boulevards.

You know, the intersection where you're forced to idle pointlessly, stuck in a non-moving parade of cars filled with people far less talented than you who make way more money for reasons you can't fathom.

Of course, here at FBLA we already refer to all league approved softballs as "Larry's" in his honor anyway. Call us sentimental.

John Brady has a piece in Folio about Time magazine and Joel Stein. Brady writes:

Does anyone here remember that wonderful year 1996, when Time magazine did a redesign that caused a reader revolt? Well, I remember it well. One element in the failed repositioning of the newsweekly was a recent staffer, Joel Stein, who was the magazine's novelty item just before the collapse. Stein specialized in news lite-hot dog eating contests, stuff like that.

When the magazine regrouped, Stein was missing in action.

Now, under the editorship of Richard Stengel (who signs his Editor's welcome column "Rick"), Joel Stein is not only back; he is riding higher than ever as the magazine sinks to new lows.

Ouch. Then Brady attempts to be diplomatic:

Look, Stein is Stein. I'm not picking on him so much as I am wondering why Time turns over so much of its space and its reputation to someone so frivolous and unfunny...

Totally! We ask the same question of the LA Times when they publish him. We blame them. It's not the kid's fault for kicking the back of your seat the entire five hour flight - it's the parents' fault for giving him Starbucks and proximity.

On the front page of Variety.com they have a photo gallery titled,"10 Comics to Watch". Then there are pictures of the performers and random - out of context but not particularly clever or interesting quotes. Are they from their acts? From interviews? Their blogs? Where did they come up with them?

For example there was a photo of Jon LaJoie and the caption: "If I were to pitch 'Show me your Genitals,' I highly doubt they'd put that on television."

Lame quote. Unless it was by Joe Francis then 'lame quote' would be redundant.

But then we saw that Ralphie May was also on the list. Not exactly a new up and comer. He was on the first and second season of Last Comic Standing, which aired before myspace existed. And in internet terms (or dog years) that's half a century ago. And his quote was:

"If you work with them, a mullet wearer 'Will come and take the tobacco right out of your hand."

A 'mullet wearer'? Is that really a phrase May used? In 2008?! Really? Is it the quotee or the quoter?

The "Dear John" letter Shelly Leachman wrote to her long-term boyfriend, Journalism? Either her proudest hour or the biggest source of embarrassment for her at her going away party.

Stephen Box is totally going to get his ass kicked. By the LAPD.

Likely no one will be moving into Times Mirror Square (not that they haven't been busy tossing bodies out to make space).

Jeffrey Wells is not getting himself invited to anything. Anywhere.

Deadline Hollywood Daily says the SAG talks are on hold until the results of the AFTRA ratification comes in tomorrow.

The Hollywood Reporter says is trying to get dual members to vote the AFTRA contract down.

Robert DeNiro thinks a strike is a bad idea.

Dan Cox, on special assignment for FishbowlLA, covering the 2008 Sun Valley Media Conference.

Media executives are packing their bathing suits, suntan oil, Blackberrys and iPods — they're all going to summer camp. Well, their version of it.

Herb Allen's Sun Valley Media Conference invites about 200 media bigwigs and billionaire-type VIPs to his Sun Valley Lodge. It starts tomorrow with media luminaries like Viacom's Sumner Redstone, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, eBay's Meg Whitman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts co-founder Henry Kravis, Sirius' Mel Karmazin, Viacom's Philippe Dauman, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Sony's Howard Stringer, former top dog at Time Warner Richard Parsons, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Warner Music's Edgar Bronfman Jr., Universal's Ron Meyer, Disney's Robert Iger, Paramount's Brad Grey and Microsoft's Bill Gates (who's doing more philanthropic ventures these days).

New media will be repped by such youngsters as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Ning founder and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, Sling Media's Blake Krikorian and Google's Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt.

Should be a non-stop week-long corporate kegger with confabs and informal business discussions on topics as far-ranging as the Middle East war, the dribbling economy, the farewell of President Bush (should he be impeached?) and the status of the Microsoft/Yahoo buyout talks, among others (though Reuters reported last week that Microsoft President Steve Ballmer was a no-go).

The conference is more of a see-and-be-seen type of confab with unscheduled meets between all sorts of major executives. When Disney's Michael Eisner was there in 1995, he met "informally " with ABC's then president Robert Iger. A month later, they merged.

Fred Phelps of godhatesfags.com fame, who's name interestingly enough - sounds like a gay sex act - is giving a send off to George Carlin the in video above. He also goes after Keith Olbermann and Jerry Seinfeld. And HBO. And America. And homosexuals. And is known best for protesting the funerals of our war dead. What a peach.

The thing with Phelps is that Carlin can match him in wits and he's been dead for two weeks.

"I hate the bloggers..." Says John McCain.

"I hate the smoke signalers too and all other new media."

Because he's old...get it?