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sam zell
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the olds
newspapers
The Art Of The Tasteful Sell Out
There was much consternation in the media world earlier this week when it emerged that Tribune's Los Angeles Times would take its Sunday magazine out of the hands of trained journalists and hand control over to the newspaper's sales staff. Editor Russ Stanton even insisted that the magazine's name be changed so readers didn't get the idea that it still had, you know, integrity. But journalists are as much to blame as the business side for the fact that their work increasingly sounds like catalog copy. Here's ink-stained wretch Rob Walker in his most recent "Consumed" column for New York Times Magazine:More »
Sam Zell Cleaning House
"Scott C. Smith is stepping down as publisher of The Chicago Tribune and president of Tribune Publishing as part of changes being made by Samuel Zell." [Times]
"Scott C. Smith is stepping down as publisher of The Chicago Tribune and president of Tribune Publishing as part of changes being made by Samuel Zell." [Times]
media
LA Times Sunday Magazine May No Longer Contain Journalism
Whoa. We all know the Tribune Company and its biggest paper, the LA Times, are in trouble. But this seems drastic even for them: the paper is considering a plan to fire the entire editorial staff of its Sunday magazine, and turn the whole operation over to the business side of the paper. It would no longer even be an editorial product. (Just try to imagine what would happen if the NYT Magazine did this). The newsroom is pissed, with LAT editor Russ Stanton reportedly asking the publisher to change the magazine's name if the plan goes through, so it doesn't tarnish the newsroom's credibility. Gee, we remember another LAT Sunday magazine scandal in 1999, back when these types of things actually provoked outrage rather than resignation: More »
newspapers
Death Of Print: Divining The Details
Sam Zell's Tribune Company is making drastic cuts in news pages, and adding more colorful charts and graphs. Analyst Ken Doctor says that strategy is doomed to fail, since it just weakens papers' brands further, and charticles haven't impressed anyone since the early heyday of USA Today. "People and paper" are business' two biggest costs. Our BOLD prediction: The four-day print edition (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday) will arrive in mid-major cities in the next 5 years. [via Romenesko]
journalismism
Sam Zell To Chainsaw Tribune Papers
Tribune CEO Sam Zell famously cursed one of his journalists earlier this year when asked whether refocusing the company would undermine serious journalism. He called such thinking "classic... journalistic arrogance." But now Zell is struggling to service $12.8 billion in debt amid a weak economy, and he's planning what sounds like mass layoffs and newsprint reductions to meet the challenge. The cuts would fall hardest on the journalists who produce the least output — just the sort of emphasis on quantity over quality once-supportive reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel are likely to abhor: More »
journalismism
Softball Chavez Interview From Leader Of U.S. Editors
At left is the top of an interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez filed by Charlotte Hall, Editor of the Orlando Sentinel and President of the American Society Of Newspaper Editors. Other editors who recently accompanied Hall to Venezuela, like Marty Baron of the Boston Globe and Margaret Sullivan of the Buffalo News, led their stories with unflattering facts about Chavez, like recently-autheticated evidence he sought to supply missiles to Colombian rebels, his country's skyrocketing homicide rate and a rebuke in a December national referendum. Hall, in contrast, introduced her story with a series of anecdotes supplied by Chavez himself, descriptions of his clothing and a button he used to summon coffee, plus the observation that he kissed female editors on their cheeks. This fluffy treatment, and Hall's sycophantic smiling in the accompanying photo, we hear, horrified some in the Sentinel newsroom, particularly among those who already regarded the editor as a "clueless" transplant from the tabloid Newsday. More »
lee abrams
Is This The Most Infuriating Newspaper Executive In America?
Each time Sam Zell's Tribune Company lays off journalists, puts a title on the block and bemoans the economics of news publishing, his ebullient new innovation czar ups the change rhetoric. Lee Abrams' latest memo, after a visit to Zell's Los Angeles Times, takes incoherent optimism to the level of prose poetry. "BE the city...in 2008. Look forward. Combine Passion with character and muscle. Operate with a sense of swagger that YOU are the city...on today's terms. ...and getting in sync with the speed of 2008 with fast, medium and deep options... and STIMULATING THE EYE."
rupert murdoch
Newsday Not Murdoch's Yet
Word emerged Tuesday on Rupert Murdoch's handshake deal to buy Newsday, and there was talk about Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman dropping out of the bidding for the Long Island tabloid. But the Times today said Zuckerman is expected to make a counteroffer next week, while Jared Kushner's Observer Media Group may submit a joint offer with Long Island television provider Cablevision, which had dropped out of the running. "People in both the News and Observer camps say they were shocked to learn of the handshake deal with Mr. Murdoch... because they had been assured by Tribune’s bankers that they had until next week to submit offers," said the Times. Perhaps Tribune chief Sam Zell, who like Zuckerman is a real estate mogul come to media later in life, understands instinctively that Newsday is best off in the hands of Murdoch, the deep-pocketed lifelong media mogul. Here's how Lloyd Grove compared Zuckerman to Murdoch as he was leaving the former's employ as a gossip columnist in 2006: More »
dead trees
Newsday Nearly Rupert Murdoch's Latest Conquest
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is about to buy Newsday for close to $580 million, and pull off a neat trick in the process: bringing profitability to Murdoch's other, cash-bleeding tabloid, the New York Post. By combining the Post and Newsday into a joint business venture, Murdoch stands to "wipe out as much as $50 million in annual losses News Corp. now incurs on the Post, with the combined Newsday-Post operation earning roughly $50 million," according to a Wall Street Journal source. The sale price represents a significant premium over the $350 million to $400 million price put forward by one newspaper analyst. The whole transaction is dependent on regulator approval, which is no sure thing. Assuming the deal goes through, it will be interesting to see how Newsday's headlines, front page and overall tone evolve, since the joint venture is not limited to back-end business operations but includes editorial resources as well. [WSJ]
newsday
Sam Zell Keeps Up Pretense Of Straight Talk
What's there to say about Newsday? I don't know, I'm not from Long Island. People from Long Island are quite happy with all that beach access. But even with the ocean, writers from Newsday aren't so happy and have been hoping for a takeover, mostly because Sam Zell is an asshole, though occasionally a charming one. Anyway, because Sam Zell is so real , he finally admitted that he's trying to unload the paper. Memo from Newsday publisher Tim Knight via The Observer, after the jump.More »
lawsuits
Stop Defaming Sam Zell's Trailer Park Company!
Sam Zell, the crazy old man who bought some newspapers recently, is a champion of free speech, which is why he swears so much. So it's odd that he is suing some lady for defamation, right? Especially because the lady is not associated with us, and we have called him all sorts of things! Oh, the lady is Dianne Jacob, who represents the Second District on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Sam Zell also owns a trailer park company that has four parks in her district. Recently, they started raising rents. Dianne Jacob said some very mildly defamatory things about them! More »
sam zell
Crazy—and 'unpatriotic'
Just as one tires of Sam Zell's schtick—the 66-year-old newspaper proprietor's folksy pep talks to Tribune newsrooms have become sadistic rituals—there comes a useful reminder of the alternative, the pompous grandees of journalism who used to run the newspapers. Six former editors of Zell's Los Angeles Times have spoken up, in the manner of retired generals opposing the war in Iraq, with generally unhelpful suggestions for the former real-estate magnate. Worst of the bunch is Dean Baquet, now Washington, DC bureau chief for the New York Times. Zell's threat to dismantle the Tribune newspapers' national and foreign coverage is not merely shocking, or stupid—according to Baquet, it's no less than "unpatriotic".
odd gifts from rich people
You have got to get on Sam Zell's Christmas Card list
"Both real estate moguls, [Tribune Co. head Sam] Zell and [U Michigan atheletic director Bill] Martin got to know each other as competitors. Each year, Zell sends out small statues - each about a foot tall - that play songs the Chicago businessman wrote himself. Martin insisted on showing them off. For example, one is a replica of the torch from the Statue of Liberty with a rolling ticker that displays the entire Declaration of Independence and a recording of Zell's new lyrics to 'This Land is Your Land.'" [Michigan Daily]
print is dead
Sam Zell: Still Shouting
Sam Zell is a crazy old man who bought Tribune Company a little while back. Since then, he's laid hundreds off, hired a bunch of nutty radio people, and done a LOT OF SHOUTING. It's refreshing! He says whatever's on his mind! He's irascible! No-nonsense! A breath of fresh air, telling it like it is! And we're fucking sick of it. Here he is shouting about things on NPR. He hasn't turned anything around yet, but he certainly yells a lot! Sam Zell says the YouTube was started in a garage and you don't know your ass from your elbow! Colorful vulgarisms will save journalism! [NPR]
dead trees
Sam Zell's Insane Radio Henchmen
Radio people tend to be very weird, and over at struggling Tribune Co. CEO Sam Zell is putting them in charge of everything, so the whole place is turning into some kind of clown show. There are batshit crazy emails, bizarre newspaper makeover ideas, pinball and an actual buzzer, like on a morning zoo radio show, used during meetings. Put on your LSD glasses and take a Hunter Thompson-esque ride through the freaky new Tribune Co. More »
hoaxes
Today's Most Tolerable April Fool's Pranks
Above, the official front page of Sam Zell's media concern, Tribune Company, renamed, today, ZellCoMediaEnterprise. Their false front page amused us the most primarily for its thinly-concealed tone of pessimism&mcash;check out the Tribune DEBToMETER! Also: funny pictures of dogs. Bucking the internet cat trend! After the jump, a couple more of the better-crafted 2008 April Fool's Jokes of the Web: More »
faustian bargains
