Zell: "Frankly this is dramatically worse than September 11th"

Haven't seen mention of the transcript of a recent Tribune-wide conference call on this board. Zell and Randy Michaels sure have some, um, "interesting" ways of thinking, including Zell comparing this downturn in advertising as worse than 9/11 and almost as bad as the Great Depression.

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2008/07/post_1.php#more

Wow. Just....wow.

 

We had a former president of our company write something to the effect of "In the words of that fateful day, 'Let's roll'" when referring to getting more ad revenue. (One of the worst day on the history of Earth, getting more ad revenue. Yeah that equates.)
Executives sometimes aren't the brightest bulbs in the marquee.

Same guy also wrote one time, "Our two biggest costs are people and paper, and we can't control the price of paper." But you can fire more people! Oh happy day.

 

Zell has spent a little too much time reading about cute puppies on the front page of his papers.

 

Nick Saban wants to know what all the fuss is about ...

 

I'm all for hating on Sam Zell, but all he's saying is that the adverstiting revenue drop is worse than the one that occurred after Sept. 11. I don't think that's unacceptable to point out.

He's still a douche of the highest order, but you're not being fair to him here. This is his entire quote:

 

You're absolutely right, but if we can't be unfair to Sam Zell, who can we be unfair to?

 

Puppies have not been pulling their weight for years. They could double their productivity if Lee Abrams was training them.

 

I didn't know we used puppies to put out the paper, and I bet readers don't wither. We should put this at the top of every page, trumpet that. Be bold. We can OWN the puppy labor space in the public's mind. Gotta push that, put it in a box in the same place every day so people KNOW where they can count on puppies.

 

I thought puppies were our best customers. They're one of the last great reasons to buy the newspaper instead of looking at the product online.

 

And fish.

 

And birds.