Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
Connie Bruck's profile of Haim Saban went online an hour ago at The New Yorker — all 11,299 words. Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, is quoted early in the piece as a friend, and Bruck writes that Saban "is most proud of his role as political power broker. His greatest concern, he says, is to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship." Saban is also talked about as a budding media mogul who acquired Univision in 2007 who "has made repeated bids for the Los Angeles Times" — and still has interest. Nor is he modest. When Saban made $1.5 billion on the sale (with Rupert Murdoch) of Fox Family Worldwide in 2001, "it was—and still is, he points out—the biggest cash transaction by an individual in the history of Hollywood."
Saban is not given to modest ambitions. Sixty-five years old, with a broad, dynamic countenance and slicked-down wavy black hair, he is known in Los Angeles as the man who brought the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Japan to America; the chairman and part owner of Univision, the nation’s leading Spanish-language media company; a staunch supporter of Israel (he has dual citizenship); and one of the largest individual donors to the Democratic Party. “Haim is a force of nature,” his friend Barry Meyer, the chairman and C.E.O. of Warner Bros., said...[skip]
By far his most important relationship is with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2002, Saban donated five million dollars to Bill Clinton’s Presidential library, and he has given more than five million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
[skip]
In targeting media properties, Saban frankly acknowledges his political agenda. He has tried repeatedly to buy the Los Angeles Times, because, he said, “I thought it was time that it turn from a pro-Palestinian paper into a balanced paper.” He went on, “During the period of the second intifada, Jews were being killed every day over there, and this paper was publishing images of a Palestinian woman sitting with her dead child, and, on the Israeli side, a destroyed house. I got sick of it.” Saban said he tried to buy the paper in 2007 but lost to Sam Zell, who purchased the Tribune Company, including the L.A. Times. In early 2008, he says that he tried to buy the paper from Zell but that Zell wanted more than he was willing to pay. After the Tribune Company went into bankruptcy, in 2009, Saban said he informed the creditors of his interest. “They’re not going to do anything until they get out of bankruptcy. So am I still interested in the L.A. Times? I am, yeah, I am,” he said.
Israel is the issue that separates Saban and President Obama, who shunned the mogul so directly that Saban took a meeting with John McCain. In the end, he couldn't bolt the Democrats, but he still sounds pissed:
He has not spoken with Obama since he became President, Saban said, “because he has no need to speak to me—or, at least, he thinks he has no need to.” He has refused on two occasions to co-chair fund-raising dinners for the President.Saban called Hillary’s defeat “my biggest loss—and not only mine. I’ll leave it at that.”
Edited post and headline
Photo of Haim Saban at home in The New Yorker: Martin Schoeller