Postcards

Viacom's ex-CEO on Kabul's front lines

While the global economic crisis consumes our focus, did you realize that Afghanistan is sliding into greater chaos? Yesterday, on the eve of U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke's visit, Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacked three government sites in Kabul and killed 19 people.

Personally, the news out of Kabul captivates me because I've been there. It was January 2003, and I was part of the first official delegation of women - MORE

Tom Freston's Supreme Court surprise

Since Tom Freston got blown out of Viacom (VIAB) - ousted by hard-to-please chairman Sumner Redstone in 2006 - he's been doing lots of things that other ex-CEOs wouldn't fathom getting into. Working with Oprah Winfrey and Bono. Making films in Afghanistan, where he once lived. Funding humanitarian projects in Kabul and southeast Asia too.

You can read about all this in my profile of Freston in the current issue of MORE

Power Point: How to lose your job gracefully

"Not that materialism is going to go away, but people are looking to be better global citizens and live their lives in better balance."

-- Former Viacom (VIA.B) CEO Tom Freston, who Pattie profiles in the new issue of Fortune. To Freston's point, he's now helping Oprah Winfrey develop her new cable TV network, OWN, and working with U2 frontman Bono on his global humanitarian efforts. Does Freston still get calls MORE

Behind Oprah's big new TV venture

"You know I believe in signs."

You probably don't know that about Oprah Winfrey since you're not sitting around watching Oprah at 4 p.m. each day. (Rather, you're trying to keep your job, aren't you?)

But the queen of media mentioned this to me when we were talking about Tom Freston, the former Viacom (VIA.B) CEO whom Sumner Redstone fired in 2006 and Winfrey immediately went after. (Read "The Most Wanted Man MORE

Viacom's Freston moves on...to Oprah and Bono

Want to read a story about failure and redemption? About sitting at the top of the business world and losing it all suddenly? About discovering that success wasn't so sweet and finding a better calling?

Check out my hot-off-the-presses profile of Tom Freston. He's the guy who built MTV and rose to be CEO of Viacom (VIA.B), only to be dumped by Sumner Redstone, Viacom's owner, on Labor Day 2006. Freston MORE

Oprah chooses a CEO for OWN

by Patricia Sellers

MTV's former president, Christina Norman, is joining the most powerful woman in media to launch OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.

Winfrey's CEO appointment, announced Thursday afternoon, caps a talent hunt that's been going on quietly since May 2007 when Discovery Communications (DISCA) CEO David Zaslav pitched Winfrey on the idea of her own cable-TV network. Winfrey liked the idea instantly--"it's about living your best life," she says about OWN. MORE

Power Point: It's never too late to start over

"For what it's worth, it's never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be...I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you're proud of and if you MORE

Oprah gears up for her new venture

Long live Oprah Winfrey. Her TV syndication contract expires in 2011, but that doesn't mean she'll go off the air then. Oprah is right now busy preparing to launch her own TV network -- one of the more anticipated media projects of the year. (It's supposed to launch in late '09 or early next year.)

It's also one of the more secretive. But watch this space, and you'll learn a bit MORE

A season for simplicity

People want simplicity for Christmas. You can tell by what's selling. Like notebook computers. Those small, un-souped-up machines outsold desktops for the first time ever in the third quarter, so says a Tuesday report from tech research firm iSupply.

The appeal isn't just low price. After an era of excess, we're all stripping down, aren't we? Nintendo's Wii and the Flip video camera, from venture-backed Pure Digital Technologies of San-Francisco, are the MORE