Sam Zell tells Orlando Sentinel photog: F%#k you.

This is bullshit. You tell someone "Fuck you" and you have to say "... if I offended you ... I'm sorry"? That's the classic non-apology apology. It puts all the onus on the offended party, because what he's really saying is, "I don't think I offended you, nobody else thinks I offended you, you're just overly sensitive, it's all in your head." We get this all the time from athletes trying to "put this behind me."

What Zell should have said was, "I said it, it was inappropriate, I apologize." Taking the high road, he would have come across as a good guy. Typical journalistic arrogance? How about typical rich guy arrogance?

 

oldpaint,

I hope things go well. It would be hard for Zell to be worse than Tribune bean counters, so he's got that going for him.

But in every buyout, takever, etc., I've ever heard, the new owners come in and say soothing or hopeful things. The hatchets come 3-6 months later.

Best of luck.

 

Very well put.

The employee handbook is incredible.

 

I'm with Ace. None of these profiteers thinks of himself as a bad guy, but few of them -- including Zell -- have any feel for or interest in journalism at all. And the fact is, he doesn't just own his businesses, he runs them. So he won't be the hands-off rich guy we all want owning our favorite sports teams, the guy who lets the GM and coach/manager do their thing. He'll be the decider.

Telling comment was his "I want us to make revenues so I can afford you." First of all, there's something a little master-minion to that, don't you think? Like we're something he buys? Second of all, he's got enough money that he can afford all the investigative, enterprise and beat reporters he wants -- if he actually wanted them. He could afford to lose money on an operating basis, annually, for the rest of his lifetime and probably another Sam-Zell lifetime if he wanted to put out a dynamite news product, print or online or both.

But he doesn't function that way. He doesn't keep score by Pulitzers won or corrupt city halls toppled or public health threats thwarted or audience-building industry breakthroughs discovered. He keeps score by dollars. Period. In everything that he does. Over and over and over again.

Kind of a boring old fucker that way, y'know? Hardly a news-matters fella.

 

I wonder if he and Dean Singleton will become close friends.

 

Regarding the "Fuck you" comment.

It's about context.

Someone said earlier Zell came to the Trib and met with some folks and dropped F Bombs all over. Fine. There's a difference in saying "I'm so fucking happy I bought this paper and now we're going to kick some fucking ass!" and saying "fuck you" directly to someone.

Whether the reporter said "fuck you" first or not isn't relevant. If she did, there likely isn't a coworker who would think she shouldn't she be disciplined. By the same token, there probably isn't an employee who lost some amount of respect for Zell for firing back. And then lost more for his non-apology apology.

He's supposed to be the leader. He's supposed to be professional. He's supposed to command the respect of the employees. He did none of that in his little rant.

 

No he can't. And even if he could, it's easy for us to tell people they should lose money on their business "for the good of journalism."

The Tribune buy was completed because Zell took on an enormous amount of debt. Billions and billions, as the late Carl Sagan would say.

That debt must be satisfied. Period. And it can't be satisfied if the enterprise is losing money on an operating basis.

 

B.T., do you have hobbies? Hobbies that you actually spend some of your money on, without expecting a profit? If you had $10 million, would you be willing to spend a million or two without expecting something in return, maybe just because you enjoyed doing it or owning it?

So why can't someone like Sam Zell, just multiplying the numbers to reflect his $4.5 billion net worth. (http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/09/samuel-zell-investments-pf_ii_cz_ts_1109zell.html)

Let's say that Zell sells off parts of Tribune Co. -- the Cubs, LA Times, etc. -- so he can focus on one journalistic enterprise (the Tribune itself or the Orlando paper) that he can afford outright. I mean, come on, $4.5 billion?

Then he makes it the best damn newspaper in the country, print or online or both. And if he doesn't make a dime on the deal, or even sees his net worth drop by a billion dollars over time (losing $40 million per year for 25 years!), well, shucks, he will have helped a community by serving up great journalism, he will have challenged himself to seek satisfaction in something other than black ink and he'll still have $3.5 billion to play his wheeler-dealer games.

I'm not telling people they should lose money for the good of journalism. I'm just surprised and disappointed that no one among the 900 or so billionaires in this country cares enough to try something like this as a grand experiment. Obviously Sam Zell is not wired this way, so he's not the guy to do it. And journalism doesn't seem to have inspired the passions sufficiently of anyone who actually is wealthy enough to try this.

I'm just saying that, given the odds, you'd think there'd be 1 in 900 people who would enjoy the sort of notoriety, challenge and "power" that would come from presiding over a world-class news operation, cost not a factor. Is it really possible that Rupert Murdoch comes closer to this ideal than anyone else out there?

 

Joe, I think the problem is that for someone to be able put up with losing a billion dollars just to prop up a journalistic venture in pursuit of journalistic excellence, they would have had to built up their $5 billion somehow, and unless you win a few lotteries, you don't become a billionaire by being ok with losing money year after year. So the people with the financial means to do what you're proposing aren't wired to think that way, and the people wired to think that way don't have the financial means.

 

My first thought when I read your last post Joe is: "That is why there are no billionaire journalists" they are all too busy fighting the "good fight" and not making money.

As far as this goes... isn't a "dynamite news product" something that would make money? Just throw in obits and a Sudoku with it and I would think people would buy it!
The problem with newspapers today is the bean counters are expecting this great product with less staff and expecting the 20-30% profit margins we saw in the 60's-80's. That's never going to happen again, Maybe Zell can live with a 4% profit margin (which would be a great year for most non-newspaper buisnesses) since he's not a newspaper guy. I'd welcome that for a change!

 

That's why I was being so ridiculously extreme in my example (losing $40 million a year for 25 years!). Somebody could accomplish what I'm talking about simply by being willing to break even -- take whatever profits the paper currently makes (whether it's 20% or 2%) and plow it back into the product, rather than continuously cutting to maintain that 20% margin. If someone like Sam Zell bought one major metro (rather than a conglomerate) and made up his mind that he didn't need to turn a profit from it, think of the journalism that could get done.

These wealthy folks get their jollies buying sports teams or building orchestra halls, but they could do more good for their cities by funding watchdog news operations. It's too bad that holds no appeal for them.

But then, I never have owned an ascot and wouldn't buy cavier if it were $1.49 a lb., so I can't think like any of them. Along the way, many have feuded with or dodged the media in some form while amassing their fortunes.