LA Times Insider Launches Anti-Zell Blog

What he's done to, and says about, Tribune Co. shows fundamental misunderstanding

(NEWSER) - Sam Zell may or may not turn the Tribune Company around, but his ownership has crippled “real newsgathering,” Peter Osnos writes in the Daily Beast. “If Tribune goes down, he will still be very rich,” Osnos continues, “but he will have presided over the evisceration of some of our best newspapers.” While Zell understands newspapers must make money, he ignores the commodity they sell: the news. More»

(NEWSER) - Amid growing gloom in the newspaper business, the Los Angeles Times plans to lay off 300 workers and shelve its local news section, LA Observed reports. Foreign and national news will be downplayed to fit local stories into the front section, the publisher said in a memo today. Seventy newsroom staff will get the ax, cutting reporting strength to half what it was before Sam Zell's Tribune Co. took over in 2000. More»

Boss not shooting straight: lawsuit

(NEWSER) - A group of current and former Los Angeles Times journalists is suing the Tribune Company for recklessly mismanaging the chain of newspapers, the Wall Street Journal reports. The suit claims billionaire boss Sam Zell has trashed the company in a hunt for quick profits, destroying the value of their pension and stock-ownership plans—though the stock plan is majority owner in the unusual buyout scheme. More»

Tribune Co. loses another top-level staffer as it prepares for big job cuts

(NEWSER) - A bad day for the Tribune Company got even worse yesterday with the resignation of Los Angeles Times publisher David Hiller, Reuters reports. Hiller is leaving after less than 2 years with the paper as Tribune owner Sam Zell prepares to cut jobs again and reduce pages at his papers. The editor of the Chicago Tribune, another of Zell's media properties, quit earlier yesterday. More»

Ann Marie Lipinski ends 7-year run in job 'not the fit it once was'

(AP) - Chicago Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski handed in her resignation today after 7 years in the top post at the Tribune Company's flagship paper. Lipinski's departure comes a week after the 161-year-old newspaper told its staff it would eliminate about 80 newsroom jobs amid a broad effort to cut costs as advertising and circulation revenues decline at its newspapers nationwide. More»