Laura Nelson, a media veteran who has led communications operations at industry powerhouses like Nielsen, Comedy Central, VH1 and MTV for nearly three decades, died Aug. 20 after a battle with cancer. She was 55 years old.

A Boston College graduate, Nelson got her start in the PR business with Dan Klores Associates in New York, but was best known as one of the top communications professionals in the media business, leading PR efforts at various networks like Comedy Central, Oxygen, VH1 and MTV between 1993 and 2007. She joined The Gilbride Group, a strategic integrated marketing company focusing on non-profit and media clients, working with clients like the Gates Foundation, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the United Nations, as managing director in 2007, and in 2012 she moved to Current TV, where she headed up that company's communications efforts.

Nelson joined ratings measurement giant Nielsen as chief communications officer in 2014, a position she continued to hold at the time of her death. 

She is survived by her husband James A. Kremens, and two children Charles H. Kremens and Annabelle D. Kremens, all of Westport, Connecticut, as well as three siblings: Gina Wilcox (Brady) of Old Lyme, Connecticut; Paul F. Nelson (Julie) of Wilmette, Illinois; and Andrew Nelson (Meghan) of Cincinnati, Ohio.

According to her obituary, a mass of Christian burial will be held on Friday, Aug. 27, at 11 a.m. at The Church of the Assumption in Westport.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to The Cancer Couch Foundation. A fund to help finance metastatic breast cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Dana-Farber Institute has been set up to honor Nelson, and the Cancer Couch Foundation has pledged to match 100% of donations.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has sued Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based media company that purchased his Current TV in 2013 for $500 million, in state court in Wilmington, Delaware, claiming it has failed to make payments to himself and his partners.

According to a case summary of the suit, Gore claims that Al Jazeera has withheld about $65 million in payments due him and his partners in an escrow account. According to the summary, about $85 million of the purchase price was placed in escrow in 2013, mainly for the purpose of satisfying indemnification obligations of the sellers. Those unused funds were to be returned after the escrow period on July 2, 2014.

“Rather than return the $65 million remaining in the escrow, as it was obligated to do, Defendant, on June 27, 2014, submitted five claim certificates through which it attempts to manufacture several ways to retain all of the escrow balance for itself in express violation of the merger agreement,” according to the case summary.

Gore, who formed Current TV in 2005, sold the cable network in January 2013 to Al Jazeera, which then used the channel to launch its Al Jazeera America network. The sale was surprising at the time in that Al Jazeera was willing to pay such a hefty price for a network with minuscule ratings. The deal highlighted the value of carriage – despite its low ratings, the network was available in about 58 million homes. Although it suffered some resistance in the beginning – Time Warner Cable initially dropped the network but later reinstated it – Al Jazeera America is now available in about 55 million homes in the U.S.

In a statement, Gore’s attorney, David Boies, said that Al Jazeera “wants to give itself a discount,” over the purchase price it agreed to in 2012.

“We are asking the court to order Al Jazeera America to stop wrongfully withholding the escrow funds that belong to Current’s former shareholders,” Boies said in the statement.

The case has been filed under seal in Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington, although Boies is trying to get the court to unseal the document.

“We do not believe that our complaint should be sealed,” Boies said in a statement. “However, despite being a news organization, Al Jazeera America has said that the full complaint should be kept from the public file.  We have therefore filed the complaint under seal until the Court can resolve this issue.  We expect that the Court will reject Al Jazeera America’s argument.”

“Our outside counsel is reviewing the complaint,” Al Jazeera America spokeswoman Dawn Bridges said in an e-mail message. “We think it relates to a commercial dispute between former shareholders of Current Media and Al Jazeera America. We may have further comment once they’ve fully reviewed everything.”