Right off the THR print magazine Q&A bat, VICE founder Shane Smith and his main backer Tom Freston spin a very enviable privately owned narrative. Smith tells senior writer Eriq Gardner that the multi-media guerilla operation currently has 1,250 full-time employees/4,000 contributors in 34 different countries, while Freston boasts that VICE is already on an audience-engagement par with MTV, SNL and Rolling Stone magazine.

We’re not sure about that last part, but there’s no denying that with VICE’s HBO documentary series debuting tonight at 11 p.m. and featuring a first episode that was cleverly shared earlier this week on YouTube, VICE’s bodacious brand will only be further enhanced. It can also be argued that nothing recently compares to the free-publicity juggernaut VICE triggered by taking Dennis Rodman and three Harlem Globetrotters to North Korea.

In a separate Web-only Q&A with Erin Carlson, Smith clarifies that VICE did not smuggle the basketball players into the DPRK and says the ensuing media circus was actually cause for great concern:

We were really worried… Rodman was only there for two days and we were there for 10 days and our team was on the ground shooting. And we know how crazy the North Koreans are and how easily they’ll sort of put someone away so we were very nervous.

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As noted in a recent “Media Decoder” item, former MTV and Viacom head honcho Tom Freston’s current efforts at USC Cinema School are not the first time he has been involved with Afghanistan. But already, the summer intensive is on track to be more successful than his late 1970s clothing company.

Two students were trained in 2011 and another pair are due to arrive on campus shortly for seven weeks of training overseen by program head David Weitzner (pictured). From Michael Cieply‘s report:

Kept under wraps until now because of security concerns, the program, entering its second year, enrolls two Afghan students annually for a crash course in the cinema school’s summer program.

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The fact that entertainment media exec Tom Freston (pictured) lived in Kabul right up to Afghanistan’s 1978 coup is lesser known than his leadership of MTV, Viacom, and the ONE Campaign. But that textile and clothing company background is the reason he is moderating a panel discussion this afternoon at the Bel Air Country Club.

Titled “Peace and War in Afghanistan: What’s really going on and the impact of media on a new Afghanistan?”, the 4:30-to-6 p.m. event is a joint presentation of the Asia Society Southern California, the Huffington Post, UCLA’s Asia Institute, and the Paley Media Center. Joining Freston will be NBC chief foreign correspondent Robert Engel and MOBY Media chairman Saad Mohseni.

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

Sony chairman Sir Howard Stringer and his right-hand man, CFO Rob Wiesenthal were scurrying about the Sun Valley meeting hall early Wednesday.

“We’re making progress with our Blu Ray and DVD deals,” Stringer said. “Our PlayStation Network people are here.”

Stringer said he uses Sun Valley to forge ahead with meetings that Sony has underway. “Many of the people we’re doing deals with are here,” he said. “They’re all in one place and accessible.”

Wiesenthal added: “We actually get a lot of work done here. We don’t have any kids.”

But more to the point, Stringer had a request of Wiesenthal as he entered the business center.

“Do they have a USA Today?” Wiesenthal emerged with a USA Today and a Wall Street Journal.

“I don’t need that one,” Stringer said and he handed the Journal off to a nearby journalist.

A few minutes later, former Viacom exec Tom Freston and his wife ran into Susie Buffett, Warren Buffett‘s daughter who runs the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after her mother who passed away in 2004.

Freston was eager to tell Buffett about a trip he’s taking to Rwanda next week.

The elder Buffett, meanwhile, was avoiding reporters as he traipsed about the meeting hall. “I’m ducking out on interviews right now,” he told the Financial Times reporter as he breathlessly walked back into the business center.

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.

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.

Chris Lee’s LA Times story is dated August 3, which is tomorrow, right? But he’s got tons of great information–some of which hasn’t been reported elsewhere.

In anticipation of a lawsuit (which he never filed) Jeremy Blake prepared a history of the couple’s alleged harrassment, naming Tom Cruise,Miranda July, Paul Thomas Anderson, former Viacom Chief Executive Tom Freston, Beck and Art Forum Editor Tim Griffin, and a number of Hollywood talent agents and major league art collectors were accused of being in on the conspiracy.