Cooking Up Media Deals With Rachael Ray, and a Murdoch Scion Sighting

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

Ken Lowe, President and CEO of the Scripps company (formerly Scripps Howard) was morose at the bar in Sun Valley Lodge late last night. He was lamenting the foreboding loss of the printed written word in media. What better than to complain about the internet to a half-drunk blogger.

Lowe was keen however on discussing the mega-investment Scripps has in chef extraordinaire and rising media starlet Rachael Ray, who ironically was at the other end of the bar drinking up the joint with her agent, William Morris’s Jim Wiatt.

Wiatt had just left a table with deposed Viacom exec Tom Freston (who is here with a company called Firefly 3).

Luckily for the bar hoppers, Viacom chief Sumner Redstone was nowhere to be seen, otherwise fisticuffs at dawn.

In another corner Rupert Murdoch‘s kid James, former head of Sky TV, was mingling with journos, one of whom came back to our group explaining how young Murdoch had been roommates in college with Post managing editor Jesse Angelo. So the Post has a nice in with young Murdoch.

Forget that dad owns the paper.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.