Sam Zell Out as Tribune CEO

Sam Zell, the Chicago-based real estate honcho who bought Tribune Company and took it private, is no longer CEO of the company, reports Jeff Bercovici at Daily Finance. That will come as a pleasant change for those of us who have watched in horror as the Tribune has been lobotomized by incompetent slashing and burning (I know, mixed metaphors, but work with me here -- it's a real mess).

But it won't be a complete triumph. Notes Bercovici: "The bad news: As chairman, he'll 'continue to provide the management team with strategic oversight and vision' -- the same oversight and vision that guided Tribune into the ditch it currently occupies."

Tribune continues to struggle in bankruptcy. But it's staff might be a little bit happier now.

Tribune Reorg to Include Widescale Selloffs?

The Chicago Sun-Times reports on possible outcomes of the Tribune Company bankruptcy reorganization drama in Chicago. Real Estate investor Sam Zell bought Tribune and took it private two years ago in a heavily leveraged deal. Though the core properties in the group -- including the Trib and the LA Times -- were profitable, there was billions of dollars in debt, and the company was then double-whacked by the current economic crisis.

Creditors are losing patience with Zell, according to the Sun-Times, and Zell could be forced out if they come up with their own reorganization plan. If that happens, the creditors would take control and could do a widescale sell-off of Tribune Company papers and other properties. (The Chicago Cubs are already for sale.) Besides the Tribune, Cubs, and Los Angeles Times, the company owns Chicago magazine, WGN tv and radio ("WGN," by the way, stands for "world's greatest newspaper," which actually once was the boast of the Tribune), Tribune Entertainment, and more -- oh, just let Wikipedia tell you.

Very sad to see a once-great media firm go through such tribulations. I frankly don't know if they're better off with Zell or the creditors in charge; it looks like either way, the company will be chopped up.

Real Newspapers Include Magazines

If a newspaper has any pretension of being a true big-city daily, it has to produce its own magazine for its table-thumping Sunday edition. Now, Folio: reports that the Chicago Tribune (which, under owner Sam Zell, has seemingly been doing all it can to become a small neighborhood paper -- closing foreign bureaus, reducing national and international news, shrinking size and scope of the paper, etc.) is going to stop producing its Sunday magazine.

You know, at some point, you stop being a newspaper.