Orzellian

Sam Zell was apparently upset that BusinessWeek portrayed him as an overleveraged, under-intellectualized nimrod in an article this summer.

Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman wrote a letter complaining that the article was a "disappointing compilation of inaccuracies, half-truths, and incomplete reporting."

Only the problem is, Weitman did not point out a single inaccuracy or half-truth. He disputed not a single fact in the article. As for "incomplete," BusinessWeek actually published a transcript of Zell's interview, letting him prattle on far longer than anyone has a right to do.

The Retch is not an idealist. But for the owner of a media company dedicated to telling the truth, Zell has shown precious little regard for it himself. He has tried to manipulate reports on the company's financial health. And now he is deploying the cheap rhetorical techniques of a propagandist to smear a completely accurate news article.

Not only that, but the Tribune letter itself is full of miraculous and unsupported claims. Weitman says that the Tribune is currently building some kind of Willy Wonka type software that will "ingest" any type of content--video, audio, text--and spit it out onto any type of platform--the web, Kindle, newsprint.

This magical software is one of Randy's favorite topics, and the language in Weitman's letter exactly mirrors Randy's previous comments about it. (Meaning, in all likelihood, that the notoriously thin-skinned Randy is probably the Zellot behind the duplicitous counter attack on BusinessWeek).

But the idea that the Tribune has some secret Skunk Works capable of churning out a piece of software that has been the Holy Grail for the entire Internet era is totally preposterous. I mean, if the Tribune actually has a beta, alpha or theta version of that kind of universal digital data software, I hope they put it out soon. It would save the entire company.

Then, Weitman claims that "we're also resizing (our papers) to better match user habits. We can't afford to print a two-hour read when consumers typically spend only 20 minutes with the paper."

Only we don't do that. Nobody expects a newspaper to be read front to back. A newspaper is a smorgasbord. There's supposed to be a little something for everybody, so some people read sports, while others read Marmaduke. It's not a book that you're supposed to read from the front page and finish two hours later when you get done with the truss ads. So if Randy & Co. think that they will increase readership by shrinking the newspapers into the size of a PTA newsletter, they're out of their minds. A tiny newspaper will attract fewer readers, not more.

In a final instance of suspect verbage, Weitman claims that "there are many examples of change at Tribune—driven not just from the top, but from the thousands of employees who believe in this industry and, most importantly, in our company."

The Retch realizes that "many" is a classic journalism weasel word--most any quantity can be called many--but why can't Weitman give at least one or two examples? 'Cuz the Retch is having a hard time thinking of any major changes to this company driven by a rank and file employee and not one of the Zidiots. For a company supposedly owned by and run for the benefit of employees, the Tribune management's changes--firings, downsizing, shrinking of the product--mostly have damaged this company's long term value.

Weitman closes his non-complaint letter--lacking a single example of error--by saying that the Tribune is attacking BusinessWeek's reporting because "occasionally the claims are so egregious we have to set the record straight."

The Retch totally understands.