New York Times Reports Uncertain Prospects On Bids For Tribune Tomorrow

The New York Times seems as uncertain as nearly everyone else has been the past week as to what kind of offers may be made at tomorrow's bidding deadline for the Tribune Co., or whether there will be any meaningful bids at all.

It seems that the combination of a whole business in the doldrums, plus the axis of stupidity which marks the Tribune executives has discouraged optimism of any bidding beyond that of the current depressed Tribune stock price, presently under $31.

The NYT article today spends considerable space talking about a possible bid by Eli Broad and Ron Burkle for at least parts of the Tribune, or for the L.A. Times alone, although it also reports that two days before the deadline, there was no certainty they would even bid.

Earlier, the L.A. Times had a story on possible Chandler family participation in a bid for Tribune, a possibility I reported on last week.

As the time for bidding approaches, there is clearly more skittishness on the Times staff about wild-eyed owners wtihout experience in the newspaper business.

But I continue to believe the future of the Times will be brighter under other ownership than the Tribune Co., and that it is highly desirable that Los Angeles have a locally-owned paper.

All we can do at this point is to wait. Perhaps, we'll know more later on in the week.

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Kudos to Garrett Therolf for his outstanding story in the L.A. Times Monday on the sailing misadventure of Ken Barnes, Jr. off the coast of Chile which broke up his attempt at sailing solo around the world. This story should have been on Page 1 of the A section rather than Page 1 of the California section.