BusinessWeek: "Zell's Deal From Hell"

www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_32/b4095000408330.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story

We know it's bleak. This doesn't paint any kind of rosy-tinted picture at all.


And, this description of Tribune's "leaders" who have ZERO newspaper experience. What a great fucking idea to turn things around:

"Adding to the uncertainty, Zell has tapped some quirky characters with no newspaper experience to run key elements of the Tribune empire. Randy Michaels, the chief operating officer, is a former Clear Channel executive and onetime "shock jock" who worked for Zell at Jacor. Michaels has installed jukeboxes, pinball machines, and a sculpture of a six-legged man running in circles called "The Bureaucratic Shuffle" in the Tribune Tower in Chicago. Marc Chase, president of Tribune Interactive, is another Clear Channel alum and former DJ. Robert J. Gremillion, Tribune's executive vice-president and interim publisher of the Chicago Tribune, hails from the broadcasting division. Gerald Spector, the chief administrative officer who's overseeing the Los Angeles Times, is a Zell acolyte from the real estate business with a penchant for sweaters emblazoned with cartoon characters."

 

I'm guessing that in Zell Hell that jukebox only plays "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen as waves of staff cuts carry on.
There's something to be said for bringing in people with a fresh approach, but having no one on board with even a little bit of newspaper experience just seems stupid. That'd be like taking a lifelong journalist like myself and trying to revamp corporate bankruptcy law. Hey...they both involve the printed word! Gotta be the same, right? :

 

Fixed

 

Now I understand why Sam Zell is totally qualified to own a newspaper company.
He's a fucking douche bag, just like all the others.
Hey, Sam ... they're readers, not customers.

 

What kind of newspaper experience is required to run pet contests as mainbars?

 

Well, if I understand the reference, you've got the wrong company; but trust me, Zell papers and websites are doing things that are just as stupid.

 

For all the things he's gotten wrong, this is one he's right about.
If newspapers looked at those who buy the paper as customers, they might have done less to alienate them over the years.
Up to and including slicing the coverage in half as the per-copy price continues to rise.

 

I agree 100 percent, but I believe the best papers also do the public service part and tell the readers what they SHOULD know, whether it's popular stuff to read or not.

 

There's no dychotomy there. Readers want all kinds of information, substantive and frivolous. They want tough coverage of their community AND they want the bridge column. What's the most common complaint people make about papers? "There's nothing in it to read!"