AlterNet: Gutted by Money Men, Chicago Newspapers Circle the Drain

[marmar]

Gutted by Money Men, Chicago Newspapers Circle the Drain

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet. Posted February 20, 2008.

Buyouts, incompetent leadership, and a lack of reader support have all but destroyed Chicago's newspaper industry.



In Mike Royko's town, it's been a while since you boarded a bus or train at rush hour and met the "newsprint curtain." In its day, the wall of newspapers spread-eagled in front of intent readers was such an institution that poet Allen Ginsberg satirized it by poking a hole in his paper and peering through.

Nor do most Chicagoans wake up anymore to the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Sun-Times with their cornflakes. Or end the day with the Chicago Daily News and a martini in their easy chair. (Who remembers easy chairs? Martinis?)

With its tail between its legs, the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, other newspapers, WGN television and the Chicago Cubs, went private after a $8.2 billion buyout engineered by local real estate tycoon Sam Zell.

Bedeviled by a $1 billion tax bill from buying the Times Mirror and the Los Angeles Times in 2000 -- it was a taxable sale rather than a restructuring says the IRS -- the Tribune Company is now owned by an S-corp ESOP employee stock ownership plan which makes "selling for parts" difficult in the near future since it pays no corporate taxes.

Not that anyone's happy. This month the Los Angeles Times lost its third editor since the sale, James O'Shea, a Tribune Company lifer. It has also lost publisher Jeffrey Johnson and two editorial page editors since the Tribune takeover. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/77102/

[KharmaTrain]

1. An Excelent, But Very Sad Article

Thank you for posting...

I grew up with the Sun-Times when Field owned it. The paper was set up to retort McCormick's right wing Tribune. Things went bad in the 80s when Murdoch briefly owned it (Royko bolted to the Tribune) and has had few good things since. The Trib isn't much better...except if you're looking to clip coupons on Sunday.

Also no surprise about the Reader. The company that operates it has been mismanaged for years (they also own the Air American station in town) and had a captive audience for years with their papers. Craig's List has really hurt the Reader (the personals aren't as much fun to read as they used to be) and the music and social scenes are covered better on the net or in other papers.

It'll be interesting to see what Zell does with the Tribune company...rumors persist he will break things up piece by piece, he's no spring chicken and has been known to play vulture capitalist in the past. His problem now is he bought on a real "down"...and even the parts sold separate won't generate profits or that there are many buyers out there.

At least for Cub fans, it should mean a good baseball season ahead (and I'm a White Sox fan)...

[marmar]

2. "(and I'm a White Sox fan)..."

My sympathies. :evilgrin:

TIGERS '08!