NYT paints a morally bankrupt culture among theTribune Company leadership.

[madfloridian]

I did not realize that one of their corporate leaders was Randy Michaels of Clear Channel fame. This is not a complimentary article by the NYT.

A blogger refers to it as the The creep culture of the anti-union Tribune.

The Chicago Tribune is notorious for its anti-union editorial stand.

A few months ago they ran what was their latest dose of yellow journalism on the alleged over priced teachers who teach in Chicago area schools.

They have led the charge for merit pay, teacher firings and for the destruction of teacher pensions.

The Tribune Company owns the LA Times which published student test scores and then rated LA teachers based on them.

Here is the New York Times article from October 6.

At Flagging Tribune, Tales of a Bankrupt Culture


Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press
THE TAKEOVER In Chicago on Dec. 20, 2007, Sam Zell discussed his purchase of the Tribune Company. David Hiller of The Los Angeles Times, left; Randy Michaels, a newly appointed corporate chief; and Scott Smith of The Chicago Tribune listened

In January 2008, soon after the venerable Tribune Company was sold for $8.2 billion, Randy Michaels, a new top executive, ran into several other senior colleagues at the InterContinental Hotel next to the Tribune Tower in Chicago.

Mr. Michaels, a former radio executive and disc jockey, had been handpicked by Sam Zell, a billionaire who was the new controlling shareholder, to run much of the media company’s vast collection of properties, including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, WGN America and The Chicago Cubs.

After Mr. Michaels arrived, according to two people at the bar that night, he sat down and said, “watch this,” and offered the waitress $100 to show him her breasts. The group sat dumbfounded.

“Here was this guy, who was responsible for all these people, getting drunk in front of senior people and saying this to a waitress who many of us knew,” said one of the Tribune executives present, who declined to be identified because he had left the company and did not want to be quoted criticizing a former employer. “I have never seen anything like it.”

It is a long article, so read more of it.

In 2001 Eric Boehlert at Salon.com did quite a expose' of Randy Michaels and the rise of shock radio.

Radio's big bully

Dirty tricks and crappy programming: Welcome to the world of Clear Channel, the biggest station owner in America.

Looking for classy radio programming? Don't look here. The company is known for allowing animals to be killed live on the air, severing long-standing ties with community and charity events, laying off thousands of workers, homogenizing playlists and a corporate culture in which dirty tricks are a way of life.

Welcome to the world of Clear Channel -- radio's big bully.

..."It was a bittersweet night last June for the 40 to 50 radio executives and on-air personalities from the AMFM Network, including countdown king Casey Kasem. The scene was the famous Spago restaurant in West Hollywood for a night of eating and drinking on the company tab......"Bitter though, as well, because the dinner marked the end of 460-station AMFM as an independent entity. Its parent company was being purchased by Clear Channel Communications -- for a stunning $24 billion.

Indeed, that same night at Spago, Clear Channel's radio chief, Randy Michaels, just happened to be holding court along with half a dozen minions of his own. A true radio original, Michaels had achieved legendary status inside the business as a shock jock (before there was a Howard Stern), and an effective but often tasteless programmer.

Boehlert mentions that there used to be ways to control the power of these stations, but the Telecommunications Act changed that.

All that changed in the 1990s. Five years ago, President Clinton, pressured by a GOP-controlled Congress, signed into law the Telecommunications Act, which essentially did away with ownership restrictions on radio. Now, just a handful of companies control radio in the 100 largest American markets.

If this is the corporate atmosphere at Tribune companies, I should not be surprised they posted evaluations of teachers based only on a single test.

Boehlert's article is interesting to me. I remember we discussed it here in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. The power of the media was great enough to beat wardrums and drown the rest of us out completely.

Apparently it is still, as the L. A. Times showed their power over public school teachers by posting those scores.

And the airing of Education Nation recently showed that the media holds the power to harm public education...and lead the country into privatization of the schools.

[leftstreet]

1. Short chubby rich white guy harasses women. I'm shocked

K&R
Great articles


The Telecom Act was a travesty

:grr:

[JI7]

2. I stopped reading the LA times ever since Tribune bought it

it use to be one of the best though. but it's trash now

[madfloridian]

7. Maybe they printed all the teachers' names and scores to get more sales...

And I imagine they did get them.

[depakid]

3. It's been a foul company for years

[madfloridian]

5. I honestly was not paying much attention until the scores and names were published.

That was a terrible thing to do. Arne is encouraging other papers to do the same thing. You'd think he would have better taste after the suicide of the teacher.

[depakid]

6. After the Chandlers sold the LA times, circulation plummeted

as they trashed the paper and many of those with a sense of ethics left (or were forced out).

[madfloridian]

4. More on Michaels from the Salon article

"Michaels' career has been remarkable. Born as Benjamin Homel, he's a broadcasting enthusiast who has been known to rebuild old radios in his spare time. Fellow programmers credit him for helping create modern country radio back in the 1970s with WDAF in Kansas City, Mo., where he spun country songs at a Top 40 pace. And he's given credit for bringing legendary AM stations back to life, like WLW in Cincinnati, by reinvesting in news departments.

Behind the mike he made a name for himself back in the '70s and '80s farting on the air, cracking jokes about gays and tantalizing listeners with descriptions of "incredibly horny, wet and ready" naked in-studio guests. Along with getting hit with a sexual harassment suit, Michael pulled in big ratings wherever he went."

And is a CEO with the Tribune Company.

[madfloridian]

8. More unclassy moments mentioned in the NYT article.

" * When the Tribune hired a new ad sales rep in June 2008, the company published a release describing her as “a former waitress at Knockers — the Place for Hot Racks and Cold Brews."

* At point, Michaels and Tribune Interactive boss Marc Chase stood on a balcony and talked about which of the employees walking around below they would like to have sex with. Someone who heard the convo told the Times: “The conversation just wafted down on all of the people who were sitting there.”

* During one meeting, one exec offered to bring in her assistant and make her have sex with "someone in a meeting who seemed to be in a bad mood."

* Back when he was at Clear Channel, Michaels was accused of biting a female employee on the neck.

* A security guard allegedly caught a senior exec and a female employee doing it on a 22nd-floor balcony.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worst-of-the-bad-porn-y-behavoir-going-down-at-the-tribune-2010-10#ixzz11tCr6ktU