Ever heard of "Moonview"? Remember Gerald Levin? Well he's back in the news, with a new New Age gig that sheds some light on how CNN got to be the way it is: wacky, effete, liberal, and out of touch with ordinary American values.
Levin was the CEO of Time-Warner from 1993 to 2001, during the time when Time-Warner took over CNN, in 1996, and also merged with AOL, in early 2001. As the stock chart above shows, the stock soared to over $100 per share in 2000, and then plummeted steeply, as investors realized what a turkey the merged-up Time-Warner was. So Levin "retired" in 2001. Today the T-W stock sits at around 20, which is to say, about a fifth of its peak.
And so it's revealing to see what some of those media geniuses have been doing with themselves since leaving Time-Warner and CNN in the dirt. There's Ted Turner, of course--he's totally crazy.
And now an update on Levin. The New York Post takes note of an article in W magazine about his resort, Moonview (that's the real name, I am not making this up!) in Santa Monica, which is now opening a branch in NYC.
Here's the Post's ace media reporter, Keith Kelly:
"Levin and Laurie [his wife] give a rare inside view of Moonview, where for an annual fee of $175,000, they give celebrities, corporate honchos and other high rollers a huge helping of their new age healing - everything from shamanism, acupuncture, yoga and hypnotherapy sessions to brain painting, which uses the brain's electric signals to create designs on a computer screen. Three medical doctors are on staff and 80 new age practitioners are on call."
Is that what America needs? Probably not. It might be what billionaires need--and they can afford it. But one could not ever expect to see a better symbol of CNN's limousine-liberal view of the world.
