Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Awartha (talk | contribs) at 23:04, 9 January 2007 (how do you not understand your own massive conflict of interest here?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Mark Ashton Lund (born 6 June 1965 in Holden, Massachusetts) is a television personality, journalist, author and producer. He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he is executive producing his first film, titled First World.

Lund founded the company Ashton International Media, Inc. in 1993 with the launch of his first magazine, International Figure Skating. By 1997, the magazine became the largest magazine in the world for the sport. He launched Women’s Basketball magazine to critical acclaim in 1999. In 2002, he published his first book Frozen Assets, which is a collection of quotes by people active in the inside world of figure skating. He also produced major events tied to the figure skating magazine: International Figure Skating’s 25 Most Influential Names in Figure Skating and International Figure Skating’s Annual Caribbean Cruise.

In early 2002, Lund was a figure skating analyst for CNN during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. He was one of the first reporters to identify French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne as the center of the judging controversy in the pair competition. During the course of those games, Lund made a total of 220 media appearances, including ABC, CBS, MSNBC, FOX, ESPN, BBC, NPR, CBC and CTV.

In mid-2002, his company purchased, via a promissory note, three additional magazines from the New York City media concern Primedia, Inc. In 2003, Ashton and Primedia became involved in a multi-million dollar lawsuit over the purchase. Forbes magazine covered the story in a November 2003 article. Ashton’s promissory notes were subsequently purchased from Primedia by a Boston-based company in 2004. That company foreclosed on Ashton and forced Lund from control of his company.

In the fall of 2004, Mark founded SCENE, a contemporary news magazine for the international gay community. Although widely received, Lund suspended the magazine in April 2006 to pursue a career in television and film production.

In early 2006, Lund was brought on as a judge on FOX’s Skating with Celebrities. Lund was also a guest on Inside Edition, FOX’s Good Day LA, TV Guide Channel’s Reality Chat and just recently made an appearance on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

In January 2007, Lund was a guest on the television show Reflections Off The Ice with Nancy Kerrigan. The show was produced by Comcast and is being syndicated throughout the United States. Since the show debuted, Lund has been criticized for his homophobic and unfactual comments on Johnny Weir. Lund referred to Weir as "prima ballerina", declared that he did not want Weir representing his community, and referred to Weir in negative contrast to Evan Lysacek's so-called "masculinity". Lund then went on to edit his own wikipedia entry in a clear conflict of interest, rather than letting other people do it for him, in violation of Misplaced Pages policy. Lund, who is gay, has refuted his comments were homophobic or unfactual.

Lund is represented by Babette Perry of IMG Broadcasting.

Awards

• Skating Publication of the Year 2002, Awarded by the Professional Skaters Guild of America

Books

• Author of Frozen Assets: The New Order of Figure Skating ISBN 0-9721402-0-4

External Links

• Official Mark Ashton Lund Web site
• Mark Lund at IMDb

• Proposed deletion as of 9 January 2007
• Living people
• 1965 births
• LGBT people from the United States