|
|
The Last Days of the Tribune Company?
| August 8, 2008 |
| Posted by Mitchell | Entry 607 |
Do we see signs that the Tribune is a sinking ship? Since June, Tribune Publisher Scott Smith has bolted, as has longtime Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski, not to mention the publisher of the (waived) Tribune-owned L.A. Times, among "several high-ranking officers at Tribune [who] have already left or been forced out".
Reports continue about dismay at the Tribune over the real-estate magnate who thinks he knows something about media. And for good reason: They're planning to gut a bunch of journalist jobs and have been keeping to form.
What's more, the Tribune -- which had lobbied (and lost) to gut media ownership rules, but lobbied (and won) to keep their otherwise-illegal TV-newspaper duopolies -- is now selling or seriously considering to sell shit left and right: the Tribune Tower, New York Newsday, and some loser baseball team.
Oddly enough, Tribune won't sell any more newspapers in 2008 -- but why would they? After all, the newspaper industry by its own assessments is still humongously profitable despite Chicken Little claims to the contrary. But while we've previously talked about the end of the beginning regarding media activism, we could be seeing the beginning of the end for the Tribune Company. Unthinkable? The business press doesn't think so; Tribune appears to be heading to default on their debt. If that happens, the media landscape in Chicago would certainly change -- seeing as how Tribune has reach to some 90% of all Chicagoans. Break that up, or dissolve that, and you could well see a vacuum in Chicago's corporate media landscape. How would that be filled? That's for each of us to determine.
Related: This write-up in the cheerfully-named Newspaper Death Watch. And this follow-up in Media Daily News. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this
website are those of the individual members of Chicago Media
Action who authored them, and not necessarily those of the entire
membership of Chicago Media Action, nor of Chicago Media Action
as an organization.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
