Since then, Sam, Randy Michaels and new toady Ed Wilson, the recently designated head of television nobody watches, have continued their road tour largely out of the public eye. They have most recently been visiting television stations in far-flung Tribune outposts like Seattle, Denver and Dallas.
The Retch decided to take a close look at these previously unexamined town hall meetings, helpfully posted on the Tribune website for masochists to enjoy. They reveal interesting clues about Zell and his plans for the future of the Tribune. Hint: newspapers are out. As Mayhill Fowler found out, sometimes public figures make their most interesting comments when they think nobody is watching. Quotes and notes of interest after
Ed Wilson
Wilson is the Retch's favorite new Zellot, a man so oily he puts Prince William Sound to shame. Wilson wants everyone – anchors, weathermen, security guards -- to sell ads:
"If you go buy a car from (a Dallas car dealer), tell him he's got to buy time here. I agree we have nine sales people on staff. But we all should be salespeople." -- March 4, Dallas, KDAF
"If you go to a car dealership to buy a car, make sure that they advertise on the station. Now, we are going to reward people that bring in money like that. … It's not a sales staff of 15, it's a sales staff of 120." June 3, Seattle, KCPQ
Now that's slime. Why use a middlemen? Why not just have the advertisers pay reporters to run stories?
Sam Zell
Zell sees trouble for the next two years:
"Yes, we have a lot of debt. Yes, it's going to be tough, particularly for the next 24 months." – June 2, Denver, KWGN
That means more cuts at the newspapers:
"What is very obvious to us is that we have been producing a newspaper at a cost that is unsustainable … I think you'll see over the next 60 to 90 days, some very dramatic changes on the print side which will dramatically close the gap that we're talking about.'' -- June 3, Seattle, KCPQ.
He'll bleed them dry, then sell:
"If I were to speculate, I'd speculate that we'd have less print properties five years from now than we have today." – June 2, Denver, KWGN (Post-Newsday sale)
Maybe local rich people will buy them.
"When we bought the Tribune, you didn't really buy newspapers, you bought an art collection. The good news is that art doesn't trade on income. It trades on people wanting to own it." – June 3, KCPQ, Seattle
Zell is to blame for this mess. He got the company too deeply in debt.
"The opportunity (to buy the Tribune) was created because we were able to acquire a lot of very, very cheap debt. The bad news is, of course, we now have to pay it back.'' – June 3, Seattle, KCPQ.
Here, the Retch emphasizes: the LA Times and the Tribune Company make money. They do not, however, make enough money for Zell to repay the interest on his note. And so, he's got to sell off parts of the farm in order to keep the bankers happy. Soon, he'll be left with a little postage stamp lot in the middle of a dustbowl. Dorothea Lange will take a picture of him.
One reason Zell wants to sell is that he really, really hates the Tribune's Washington, DC bureau. In Seattle, he became sputtering mad ("I can hardly talk") when he recounted how two reporters, one for the Chicago Tribune and one for the LA Times covered the same Supreme Court story.
"It was the same shit, except written by two different people. That's just incredible. How could that be?" – June 3, KCPQ, Seattle
For the record: Zell is wrong. On Feb. 27, the Tribune's James Oliphant did an advance on the Supreme Court hearing. On Feb. 28, David Savage wrote about the actual hearing. That's called "covering the news."
He also hates having Tribune reporters compete on stories. So much for getting away from Tribune micro-managing. He was very upset that two reporters did similar features on a popular Afghan television show:
"How could we send two reporters, one from the LA Times and one from the Chicago Tribune to Kabul for Afghan Idol? It's hard for me to make this up?" – June 3, KCPQ, Seattle.
For the record: Zell is right on this, and perhaps it's not the smartest use of reporting resources. Nonetheless, competition is the lifeblood of journalism. Reporters battling for scoops is what produces high quality news. Many corporations have internally competitive teams working on the same exact project for just this reason. Sometimes, reporters on the same topic produce strikingly different stories. Compare Judy Miller and the New York Times and Knight-Ridder's Warren Stroebel and Jonathan Landay on WMD. And sometimes, the reporters' stories are very similar. It's just how the world works.
On the other hand, Zell loves the ladies. He jokes about strip clubs and porn sites at nearly every stop he makes. He has an intimate familiarity with gentlemen's clubs in various cities. But he hasn't been to any in, er, several years.
"I thought we'd negotiate with that porno channel. We'd get better ratings, wouldn't we?" June 2, Denver, KWGN
"Rick's is the next stop, right, in Houston, is that right? I think it is. I haven't been there in many years." – March 4, Dallas, KDAF.
Randy Michaels
Michaels, the quisling Maxi-Me to Zell's Dr. Evil, dresses identically to his insane Leprachaun master, only in plus sizes. Michaels' Big Idea is to create software that unites all digital content into one easy-to-use platform. He apparently thinks that the Tribune is going to do this in-house, with its own crack programmers. He apparently does not realize that the entire technology industry has been pursuing this same goal, with limited success, for the past decade.
"We're going to think of ourselves as a company that ingests content. It could be video, it could be text, it could be audio, it could be anything at all…Then we'll distribute it to transmitters, printing presses, PDAs, websites, Kindle, whatever is coming next.'' – June 3, Seattle
Randy also doesn't like talking to "authorities" to get news.
"Somewhere someone told us that we have to attribute stories. Count the number of times in the news we used the word "authorities" this morning. We get our news from authorities. Authorities say. Officials report. What is that? That's not attribution. Tell me who said it. Otherwise, tell me what happened." – April 24, Chicago, WGN.
So there you have it. A portrait of a First Amendment company run by smug frat boys who want to get rich, cash in and bolt to the nearest jack shack. They are contemptuous of their workers, ignorant of journalism and totally lacking in new ideas.
The Retch has a message for LA's billionaires. I know times are tough. I know that you, too, probably made bad investments in Southland real estate. But is this really who you want covering your community? Are these really the people you want in control of the flow of information for 15 million people?
If not, step up and make an offer. It's time for ABZ – Anybody But Zell.
""I'm a savior of the newspaper business. I want to go down in history as someone who stood up and made a serious effort to save this business."" – Sam Zell, Feb. 26, Washington DC.
7 comments:
There's a new collective behavior trend out there called "flash mobs," which I'm sure many of our colleagues have reported on from time to time. I suggest we organize our own flash mob at Zell's residence with staffers and former staffers from all our papers (maybe even some Cubs players could show up to bat a few over the roof and into the cement pond area) and tell Zell what the "F" we think of his plans to kill not only hundreds of careers, but the virtues we have worked so hard to build the business of journalism upon: Credibility and Integrity. The first time a reporter is ordered to sell ads to subjects while on assignment will be the beginning of the end of the credibility of all Tribune's reporters and leave what readers who remain bankrupt for a reason to read our product. Moreover, consider the potential damage in cultivating future newspaper readers if we allow strip club and porn advertising in our in our products whereby a school teacher thinks twice about letting her students do a reading or research project using what was once a family-oriented, credible, newspaper. There is much more on the table here than just my job, yours and those already axed...
this all makes me want to cry. zell is going to turn newspapers into not-journalism; places where making money and giving the readers "what they want" trump the mission that got us all involved in the first place.
I have this sad vision of the future where I'm doing pr or marketing or technical editing and telling my kids that once upon a time, daddy had a job that mattered.
You are both right on. This is more than just the firing of a couple more reporters. Would you make a university president the head of an auto body shop? Install a scriptwriter over the San Onofre generating plants?
Yet, that's what has been done here. Information and news are critical the functioning of a city, a place, a country. And Zell is treating it as a joke.
ABZ.
We should do a West Coast version of the flash mob the next time he is at his public-access-blocking beach house in Malibu.
http://www.californiacoastline.org/cgi-bin/image.cgi?image=200405628&mode=sequential&flags=0&year=2004
You know, the one where public access to the beach was blocked when someone (?) piled sand into a lateral sea cave, plugging it up?
Some of his neighbors say that's the reason why Broad beach os not so broad anymore:
http://malibusurfsidenews.com/stories/200806/20080612001.html
I haven't seen The Times steal this story from the local weekly yet, but they typically are 2-3 news cycles behind the curve. In this case, since it's a weekly, their article ought to come out by July 5 or so.
That's his West Coast manse right on the rocks. It's a private street with a gate, but the state got ownership of a few of the lots in the subdivision so the shirtless masses have the right to walk down it and stare all they want.
Hmm... two stories on the same topic? I would take this as evidence the newspaper is not missing some stories. Kind of like when a surgeon removes an appendix, if she only takes out inflamed organs it means she's missing some operations she ought to have done. A true newsperson would be much more enraged about missing stories not told at all, rather than stories that were well covered.
Sam Zell stealing sand from Broad Beach?
Sam Zell blocking public access to tidepools?
There have been articles in the Malibu Srufside News.
The Malibu Surfside News, and this blog.
Not the LA Times.
Get it?
Today, the publisher of the Sun told the newsroom staff in a meeting discussing the impending buyouts/layoffs that staff reductions will give the paper time to "figure out" a game plan as it is "headed down the runway." When I board a plane, I assume the flight plan has already been filed. In this case, thanks to managerial incompetence on all levels, from Zell to the peon local publishers and managing editors fearful of their own jobs, we are on a crash course with hell. Tim Ryan's comment is indicative of the ignorance and disregard for the public interest on behalf of the Tribune management that delivered us to this hell; Sam Zell's hell, in the first place. The most gratifying thing about today's meeting was seeing the pure cowardice and incompetence publisher Tim Ryan displayed as he took questions from our passionate and decidedly angry newsroom staff. Thank you Mr. Zell, and incompetent managers throughout, for creating a forever hostile atmosphere between those who will remain and the white cotton shirts and ties, and thicker wallets, that separate you from us. The emperor's clothes are off and your stupidity will become the laughing stock of a free press that once was.
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