Posted on 09/18/2006 4:52:07 AM PDT by abb
Tribune Co., already under pressure from its largest shareholder, the Chandler family, is facing a growing challenge on another front: a push by some rich and powerful citizens in Los Angeles for a sale of the Los Angeles Times to local interests.
The clamor over the nation's fourth-largest newspaper comes ahead of a Tribune board meeting Thursday, at which Chief Executive Officer Dennis FitzSimons is expected to deliver on a directive from the board to present a plan for the future of Tribune. Mr. FitzSimons and other executives have been preparing the plan even as they negotiate with the Chandlers, who formerly owned the Los Angeles Times, over the value of two complex partnerships that set off a bitter public battle between the family and Tribune management in June.
The loose collection of those interested in a sale of the newspaper includes possible billionaire buyers, Times management and civic leaders. The parties say it is unorchestrated. But all say they are concerned that further cuts could harm a prestigious newspaper, and that if Tribune persists, then local ownership may be a possible savior.
In an interview, Scott Smith, president of Tribune Publishing, said the company sees the Times and its staff as a central source of content for other Tribune newspapers, which include the Orlando Sentinel, the Baltimore Sun and the Hartford Courant. The bottom line matters too: Tribune Publishing has roughly $4 billion in annual revenue, about a quarter of which comes from the Times; the unit comprises about 75% of the company's total revenue.
"We believe there are opportunities to smartly collaborate on news coverage and editing, and we are doing that in significant ways, largely building off the talents of the journalists of the L.A. Times," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ping
The LA times is a great paper! Where else are you going to know what Fry's or Big 5 has on sale for the week?
internet??
The Tribune people should be on their knees thanking God for the offer.
"The LA times is a great paper! Where else are you going to know what Fry's or Big 5 has on sale for the week?"
Bah. I love it because it's so absorbent.
L.A. Times not liberal enough? Well so what happens if the paper is purchased by a bunch of radical liberals like Meathead Rob Reiner?
It will lose circulation at a faster rate and go out of business even faster than it is now...
Related story. This is the sound dinosaurs make when they're up to their asses in the tar pits...
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten16sep16,0,4284287.column?coll=la-home-entertainment
ANYONE who cares about newspapers and who believes they have a constructive role to play in the lives of their communities and in the service of our American democracy cannot help but be struck by the contrasting events that unfolded 3,000 miles apart late this week.
In Manhattan, the chairman and vice chairman of the New York Times Co. told the Securities and Exchange Commission that they plan to cut their own pay over the next two years and will use the savings to "reward exceptional performance" by employees not usually eligible for bonuses. New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. and International Herald Tribune Publisher Michael Golden — both members of the family that controls the company — said they will forgo a combined $4 million of their own money over the next 24 months to create the incentive pool.
In Los Angeles, Jeffrey M. Johnson, this newspaper's publisher, and Dean Baquet, its editor, told one of their own reporters that they have rejected demands by the Tribune Co. to further cut The Times' staff.
Since taking control of the paper six years ago, the Chicago-based Tribune has laid off or bought out about 20% of the paper's then-1,200 person staff.
As Times staff writer James Rainey reported this week, "the editorial staff currently numbers about 940. Since 1999, The Times' photo department has shrunk by about one-third. The graphics and design department has lost more than 40% of its employees. Large daily operations in Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley, scaled back before Tribune's purchase, have been reduced to just a handful of reporters."
Obviously, the events in New York and Los Angeles are separated by more than distance. They reflect two diametrically opposed ways of dealing with the nervous breakdown that currently afflicts American newspaper journalism's managerial class. The reasons for that breakdown are several and involve social and technological changes too familiar to belabor here. Essentially, the difference in the response comes down to coping mechanisms:
The New York Times Co., like the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, has reduced the number of its journalists, but only recently and, then, grudgingly.
That's because they are determined to change and grow into the era now unfolding with the quality of their journalism intact. In fact, they believe that the quality of their journalism — however it is delivered to future readers — is the reason for their existence.
There's a simple truth at work here: A newspaper that is indifferent to its bottom line goes out of business; a newspaper that thinks only of its bottom line has a business that isn't worth saving.
Like so many other corporate media conglomerates, Tribune is locked into a different coping mechanism because the iron logic of its situation seems to require that it assign the highest value to the opinion of the money and fund managers who own its stock. Their opinion, of course, is that they want as much money as they can get for their clients right now. In the face of that imperative and in an era of turbulent change and vast uncertainty, there doesn't seem to be anything to do but cut to keep profits up and hope that the money for reinvestment in journalism somehow will turn up.
- snip -
I posted some comments on your other thread re Time Mag having a rough time.
Those comments are even more relevant to the LA Slimes. By pushing the left wing agenda re abortion, dumbed down NEA pseudo education and welcoming illegal aliens to become voters, the LA Slimes has created a time bomb for its destruction and for other left wing media outlets in that area.
Below are my comments re Time Mag, which are even more relevant re the LA Slimes:
"Besides the obvious business problems re declining ad $'s, the MSM corporate demons have slashed their own throats by pushing Abortion, NEA pseudo education, and welcoming illegal aliens for over 3 decades.
Their key markets, the Big Blue Cities are now populated by dumbed down survivors of large scale liberal abortion and NEA dummying down of the unaborted. Also, the illegal aliens from Mexico, another long time agenda of the MSM/Rats don't read Time, Life and other semi serious mags.
I have been warning liberals of this self inflicted doom re less voters and markets for liberals since 1993. We are now starting to see this impact across the nation and in particuliar, the Big Blue Left Wing Cities."
Can any of you point me back to the thread from last week wherein portraits of Pinch appeared, both with/without a black eye?
I wanna do a little Photoshopping.
I was on vacation last week and far away from my computer.
When you find the thread, please ping me with the link.
here, you lazy ass... (lol, JK)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1700792/posts
Thanks. That looks like a fun thread for our side.
Photoshopping Pinch, you say?
Mmmmm, can't wait to see your handiwork.
Actually, you can't use the internet as both company's ads are local. Big 5's website-from last i checked-isn't an e-commerce site nor posts it's ads online.
hey, thanks nathan!
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