Mr. Zell: Owning A Paper Is Not All Making Money

Now that it appears its lobbying in Washington has paid off, and the FCC will clear the way for Sam Zell to assume ownership of the Tribune Co., and its largest newspaper property, the L.A. Times, I think it's important to raise again the issue of control by Zell over editorial policy.

So far, the Chicago real estate magnate and part time Malibu resident has steadfastly proclaimed that he will keep hands off the editorial pages. He makes it sound like his only interest is making money.

But, Mr. Zell, there is more to newspapering than that. Owning a newspaper is a public trust, and it is not only appropriate in my view, it is desirable, that you, as owner, try to influence your papers in constructive directions, as you understand what those directions to be. The way Abraham Lincoln once put it was "firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right."

This is particularly the case with you, the son of Jewish immigrants to the U.S. (your parents got out of Poland just weeks before Hitler took over) and a major contributor to educational institutions in Israel and other Israeli charities.

At the L.A. Times, again this week, there have been fresh indications that the newspaper, editorially, wants to have it both ways in the Arab-Israeli dispute, equating Jewish "extremists" with Arab ones, and running, yet again, an Op Ed Page article this morning by a Palestinian woman who says any peace settlement in the Holy Land must include a "right of return" of Arab refugees to Israeli territory. The editor of the Op Ed Page, Nick Goldberg, has repeatedly run such articles, when he knows, or should know, that a "right of return" would submerge Israel in a sea of Arabs, and destroy the character of what President Bush just this week at the Annapolis conference accurately called "the Jewish state."

There is nothing in the article this morning by Ghada Ageel that mentions that the war that induced her family to leave its farm in 1948 was caused entirely by an Arab determination to destroy Israel as soon the United Nations-approved partition of the Holy Land went into effect, that Arab armies attacked the state the night it was formed, that again in 1967 Israel was forced into war on threat by Arab governments of its annihilation, and that Palestinians controlling the Gaza strip, which Ageel now wants to call home, have been continually pursuing military conflict with Israel, just this week continuing to send missiles into Israeli towns.

Today's Op Ed article is the latest of many that have appeared in the L.A. Times over the years that have taken a position on Middle Eastern issues that was offensive to many in the Los Angeles Jewish community, one of the largest in the world. The present attitude of the paper explains why many Jews do not like or trust the Times. The Chandler family which used to own the paper worked hard to bring the Christian and Jewish communities in Los Angeles together in common pursuits, but since the Chandlers sold out to the Tribune, the paper has editorially become more and more unsympathetic to Israel and to its right to defend itself.

Now, with your ownership, the question must be asked of you: Will this position continue, or will you direct that it be altered?

I hope the answer will be the latter.

Another matter which will be of fundamental importance this coming year is the 2008 election. As owner of the newspaper, it is entirely proper for you to take a position on this and direct that the editorial policy of the Times be in accord with it.

I realize that you are a Republican, but, according to various articles, you have made political contributions in the past to both Republicans and Democrats. The issues this coming year will be many and complex, and it is by no means certain who will emerge finally as the major party candidates. I'm a Republican too, but on many occasions have voted for Democrats, and I think it likely that you have too. Just as I haven't made up my mind how to vote yet, I expect your views may well evolve.

All this is not to say that Times coverage of the political contests in the news columns shouldn't be fair to all, and independently-minded, as Otis Chandler directed when he became publisher of the paper in 1961. But fair and independent news coverage does not mean that the editorial pages can't take a position, and, as I say, I believe that position should be consistent with yours, whatever it may be as the year goes on. You are the owner and you should not abdicate all the responsibilities of ownership.

You've been in business all of your adult life, and obviously you have an interest in seeing to it that the Tribune Co. and its papers and television stations are profitable. So do, naturally, your employees. But in the long run I believe your reputation will be established more on the quality of your papers and the soundness of their editorial policy than on dollars and cents. The L.A. Times in particular has always been profitable, and I would imagine that would continue. The quality of the paper and the soundness of its editorial pages are more in question.

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Tim Rutten has a powerful column in the L.A. Times Calendar section today raising questions about CNN's conduct of the debate this week between candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. Rutten is particularly concerned at the 35-minute concentration at the beginning of the debate on the immigration issue, and he also is critical of questions to the candidates about their religious feelings. I think he is correct when he perceives a CNN attempt to embarrass former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon. Although proposed questions came through Google, there were 5,000 of these, and in picking a very small number of these to actually be asked CNN in effect decided the questions itself.

I too have had several blogs in recent months questioning whether CNN is not chiefly concerned these days with improving its ratings via-a-vis the Fox News network than it is with being a responsible newscaster. The network is bound downhill to moral squalor, and Rutten is correct in suggesting that under these circumstances, some other network ought to be selected to stage the debates.

Zell Reassured Los Angeles Elite With Blunt Talk

Los Angeles is the nation's second largest city and is known throughout the world as one of the most distinctive places on the planet. So, naturally, it has been tough on the city to lose control over its newspaper, and to feel that the new owners, in Chicago, didn't care a great deal whether the newspaper was any good or not.

Now, with the advent of Sam Zell, as prospective new owner of the Tribune Co., there is a chance that the relationship with the owners can change. That possibility is what brought the city's elite to the Los Angeles Times last Thursday to meet Zell, who was also here to address L.A. Times managers.

Generally speaking, from what Manatt, Phelps law partner George Kieffer, chair of the two-year-old Civic Alliance, had to say about last Thursday's meeting, it can be concluded that it went well, that Zell made a good impression, and that he seemed sincere when he said he was "leaning" toward giving the Times more autonomy within Tribune operations.

Another member of the Alliance who attended the meeting remarked afterward, "(Now), we all have our fingers crossed."

Zell, who is about to turn 66, is listed by Forbes magazine as the 52nd richest man in America. Born in Chicago the son of Polish Jewish immigrants who had fled Hitler in 1939, he made his fortune in real estate, often taking what appeared to be bad investment choices that turned out gloriously. His political and charitable contribution record leans Republican. Zell has given to both Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain, and he contributed last year to the reelection of Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut against an antiwar candidate. But he has also given to many Democrats, including such liberals as Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. He has further been a generous contributor to educational institutions both in the U.S. and Israel. Programs in his name are proceeding at the University of Michigan, the Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University and in Caesarea in Israel. He owns a house in Malibu, where he spends considerable time away from his home in Chicago.

As he proved again in his meetings here on Thursday, Zell is informal and direct, as you would expect from someone who has had so much success in life. He greatly impressed members of the Times staff Thursday by using the F-word three times, and was gently cautioned on his language by one of the members of the more staid Civic Alliance. Zell was dressed in jeans for both meetings, and remarked at one point that he could have worn a suit, "but that wouldn't be me."

The group of 22 business, professional and organizational leaders who met with Zell for an hour and 45 minutes in the board room at the Times building is composed of the city's talented elite. Those present included a former U.S. Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, the chairman of th e Los Angeles Police Commission, John Mack, the publishers of two news organizations, the Spanish-language La Opinion and the Los Angeles Business Journal, the two highest officials from the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the heads of black, Latino, Japanese, Asian and Pacific islander associations, the head of Los Angeles' United Way. and the CEOs of Cedars-Sinai hospital and the City National Bank. The group meets monthly to discuss issues of moment, such as transportation, crime, disaster preparedness, media performance and so on.

This was the group that wrote to Tribune Co. CEO Dennis FitzSimons last fall appealing to him to either support the L.A. Times with enough resources for it to continue to be one of the nation's leading newspapers, or to consider selling it. In short then, this is a group of citizens proud to be Los Angelenos and prepared to stand up for the city. Recently, among its meetings, Kieffer said, was one with three managers of leading local television stations, to whom they appealed for more extensive coverage of local news.

Zell, asked at one point about Los Angeles citizen criticism of the Times in its present state, replied that it seemed to him that L.A. was harder on its newspaper than the residents of many other cities.

Zell was accompanied to the meeting by Times publisher David Hiller and editor James O'Shea, managers sent to L.A. from Chicago last November after two independent-minded publishers, John Puerner and Jeffrey Johnson, and two editors, John Carroll and Dean Baquet, had been forced out for resisting cost cutbacks at the Times advanced by FitzSimons and other Tribune executives.

According to Kieffer, Zell put considerable emphasis during the meeting on exploring whether the Tribune Co., which owns many newspapers and television stations across the country, as well as the Chicago Cubs, is a " single corporation" or a "conglomerate."

He said he leans toward believing it is a conglomerate, and that if this is so, the various major properties should have considerable autonomy to decide their own policies rather than always knuckle under to Chicago. (Of course, this was an argument advanced by Baquet, now the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, before he was fired by Hiller last November).

For instance, Kieffer said, when members of the Civic Alliance made a point during last week's meeting of questioning whether advertising should be placed on Page 1 of the Times, Zell said he might well be inclined not to make that decision himself, but to leave it to Hiller. He also said that if ads are not going to be placed, perhaps Hiller could come up with alternative ideas for a needed revenue stream, at a time when newspapers across the country have suffered advertising declines.

(Hiller, I should add, seemed to be going along with overall Tribune policy when he first broached the plan for putting ads on Page 1. The idea was advanced at other Tribune newspapers virtually the same day and appeared to be generated from Chicago. At the Times, the idea has encountered broad resistance, with even the editor, Shea, vehemently opposed, as well as many senior members of the Times staff and ordinary subscribers. So far, no such ads have appeared).

Toward the end of the meeting, when someone questioned how members of the Civic Alliance could give Zell support, Zell responded bluntly, in so many words, that he was not asking for the group's support, but its neutrality, while it watches what he as the Tribune's new owner, actually does, as compared to what he might say.

I asked a retired Times editor what he thought of that. "Zell is telling them, he's going to run the show," was this editor's interpretation.

But, perhaps, after years of poor direction by FitzSimons and other Tribune managers, which seem to have only spun the company only into more debt and poorer business condition, even while diminishing the quality of the Times, that is what even the Los Angeles elite would desire.

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Bill Dwyre, the former Times sports writer who now writes a sports column, had a powerful one in Tuesday's newspaper, suggesting in the strongest terms that National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell take very tough disciplinary action against Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback, for organizing dog fights, treating the dogs brutally, gambling and other offenses.

Dwyre has always been outspoken against gambling and a strong upholder of quality in sports. It's good to see, he's not lost his edge on these vital issues.

Zell Vowed To Times Managers, Deal Remains On

A feisty Sam Zell, occasionally using expletives and conveying the idea he intends to take charge of the Tribune Co. in no uncertain terms, told L.A. Times managers last week that he is determined to go through with his agreement last spring to buy the company.

When asked about the advertising and revenue fall that have ensued since he made the offer, Zell declared, according to someone who was there, that the Tribune papers have really not had an owner now for months, and that when he takes over, he will roll up his sleeves and go to work. He indicated his first steps would resound through the company.

As to whether the present management will continue, specifically as to whether the present CEO, Dennis FitzSimons, wanted to stay on, Zell responded along the lines of what the hell of a difference does that make, according to a source.

As the L.A. Times, the New York Times and even an AP business writer have said this week, there are still obstacles to be overcome, if the Zell purchase is to be consummated. First, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must approve the deal, agreeing to waive the prohibition against a company owning major newspaper and television outlets in the same city, as the Tribune does presently with the Times and Channel Five in Los Angeles. Second, as the New York Times reported Monday, there must be an independent solvency analysis of Tribune before the deal can be finalized.

A lesser obstacle was cleared Tuesday when Tribune stockholders approved the deal by a vote of 97%. This had been fully expected since under the terms of the deal, Tribune stock still outstanding would be purchased for a hefty premium (about $7 above Monday's closing price). That closing price of $27.02 yesterday was a sharp advance over last week's trading, when Tribune stock had gone for as little as $24.45 a share, and the stock rose again today. Since it seems clear the stock price would collapse were the Zell deal not go through, the rise this week reflects increasing confidence by stockholders that Zell's plan to take the company private with a $34 stock purchase is on track.

FitzSimons told the stockholders meeting that the terms of the deal have been okayed with four major banks that would help finance it, and he insisted that the terms of the deal fully protect existing employee pensions.

On the same day that he met with Times managers, Zell also met at the Times with members of a group of more than 20 prominent Los Angeles business, professional and organizational leaders, representing all of the city's major ethnic groups, who had written to FitzSimons last fall expressing concern about how Tribune management was running affairs at the Los Angeles Times, and specifically about all the cutbacks it had made there. The Los Angeles elite had suggested that if Tribune was not able to run the newspaper successfully, it ought to sell it.

Among those attending this other session, about an hour and 45 minutes long, were former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Annenberg Center dean Geoffrey Cowan, attorney George Kieffer, Police Commission chairman John Mack, Latino leader Edward Avila, and former mayoral candidate Steven Soboroff, among many others. Tuesday afternoon, Kieffer, who chairs the group, the two-year-old Civic Alliance, called the meeting "constructive" and described what was said there. Besides Zell, L.A. Times publisher David Hiller and Times editor James O'Shea also were present at this meeting. MORE about this meeting in tomorrow's blog.

Things perhaps did not go quite so smoothly at the Times management meeting and just afterwards. Besides his management thoughts, Zell was challenged on the announced plan to start running advertising on Page 1 at the Times. Someone wanted to know whether Zell would be pleased were someone to build a ramshackle building next to his Malibu house.

Zell reportedly responded that how he would feel would depend on the quality of the neighboring house, and he suggested that front page ads would be acceptable if they were in good taste, as he said, they would be. (There are reports that the Times has rejected some early proposals for the front page ads).

Asked how he felt about the Times these days, Zell said he liked the sports section, which he said he reads first, but he was critical of the business section. and he called the rest of the paper bland. He remarked he doesn't like either the New York Times or Los Angeles Times business sections. However, Zell conditioned all such remarks with renewed assurances he is not a journalist and would not give direct orders as to how all these sections should be run.

Altogether, Times managers were said to be fairly impressed with Zell, and came out of the meeting somewhat more hopeful, although doubts about the deal's consummation will persist among some until it is final.

The Zell meetings took place last Thursday, one day before the Federal Reserve Board reduced the discount rate in a move directed at bolstering the credit markets in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage collapse. So they came at a low point of last week's financial troubles.

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That Zell has his work cut out for him, is made even clearer with word today that the L.A. Times Washington bureau has lost its investigations editor, Marilyn Thompson, after only 14 months on the job. Thompson is going to join Dean Baquet's Washington bureau of the New York Times.

Doyle McManus, the LAT Washington bureau chief, said in a memo that he would launch a nationwide search for a new investigations editor promptly, and asked for any recommendations. Baquet said in his own memo, "...how terrific it is that the New York Times continues to build its staff at what is obviously a rugged time in the newspaper business."

Thompson is the second major investigations editor to leave the Times in recent months. The other was Vernon Loeb, who had been located in Los Angeles.

Zell Bluntly Says L.A. Times Will Not Be Sold

In his clearest statement to date, Sam Zell has told Maria Bartiromo, in an interview published in BusinessWeek that he will not sell the L.A. Times. It sounds like a definitive statement by the new Tribune Co. owner.

"There's no intention of selling the L.A. Times," Zell said. "Period. End of speech."

And, to a followup question from Bartiromo, who, by the way conducted a more penetrating interview with Zell than either the Chicago Tribune or the L.A. Times, Zell said,

"I don't have any plans to sell any newspapers. We're going to own all the newspapers for the foreseeable future." That would seem to be definitive for Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, the Hartford Courant and other former Times-Mirror newspapers, with the exception of the ones in Greenwich and Stamford, which, I believe, were committed to sale before Zell came on board.

Zell did reiterate that the Chicago Cubs baseball team would be sold, saying, "I'm really not a baseball fan" and indicating he expects a lucrative selling price.

The Bartiromo interview also elicited a strong statement by Zell of his belief in the future of the newspaper industry.

"Where everyone is prophesying the newspaper business is dead, I think of Mark Twain's quote as applicable," Zell said, "that reports of its death are highly exaggerated."

However, Zell was noncommittal on staffing level plans, saying, "I don't have enough information at this point to answer that."

In another part of the interview, Zell said he "absolutely not" will use the editorial pages of the various Tribune newspapers to reflect his own personal views.

When Bartiromo asked, "Why?," Zell responded:

"This is an economic transaction. I'm not buying a way to get my views shared with the world. I'm not averse to telling everybody exactly what I think. But I believe in editorial independence. I truly believe that the editorial side of this business should not be determined by someone in my position. And I'm perfectly happy to have the newsrooms continue to do what they've been doing, and maybe do it better."

This does not completely exclude that he may have some influence over what the editorial pages of his papers say, because he refers to "newsrooms," and it is not clear that he and Bartiromo are using the same exact meaning for editorial pages, but the implication certainly is the individual publishers and editorial pages editors will be free to express their views in editorials. We'll see.

In another part of the Bartiromo interview, Zell indicated his satisfaction that the Chandler family is being bought out of any shares in the Tribune-owned papers, remarking that "the biggest immediate benefit" of his purchase "is that the warfare between shareholders and the company will end and that in itself will go a long way toward improving the environment" for company decision making.

This blog has been devoted, throughout its two and a half years thus far, to the idea of selling the Times back to local ownership. But now I and other such proponents have little choice but to wait and see how Zell runs the newspapers. He was explicit with Bartiromo that his tenure as the Tribune owner would be fairly lengthy, saying, "We envision being involved at least 10 years."

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As I said in a blog March 1, the Los Angeles bid for the 2016 Olympic Games got off on the wrong foot, because its $112 million plan to renovate the Coliseum indicated a third L.A. Games would be improvisational and Spartan, like the 1984 Games, and Olympic authorities would not be likely to settle for that. Also, I mentioned the over representation on the L.A. bid committee of downtown lawyers and the failure to sufficiently bring in Hollywood celebrities.

Now, the selection by the U.S. Olympic Committee board of Chicago as the American candidate city for the Games confirms that my impressions were correct. Chicago also undoubtedly benefited, as Helene Elliott suggests in her story this morning in the L.A. Times by not only coming up with an ambitious plan, well presented, but also by the fact that it has never held the Olympics before, while Los Angeles has had it twice.

I do not share the view some are expressing that Chicago has a good chance to be awarded the Games by the International Olympic Committee in 2009. Given the present world environment, I think it's more likely that the IOC will choose a foreign city. We'll see.

A somewhat different view of that, and an assessment of the Chicago victory yesterday which somewhat parallels mine, can be seen from Alan Abrahamson, the former L.A. Times Olympic correspondent who has now gone to work for NBC, at NBCsports.com. It is well worth reading.

Sam Zell Deal Begins To Look Better for LAT

Written From Sacramento--

Who would have ever thought, during the Chandler era, that the L.A. Times would one day be owned by the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, and a strong philanthropic backer of both Israel and the Israeli support association in the U.S., AIPAC? Such facts should certainly have been mentioned in the extensive Los Angeles Times and New York Times coverage this morning, but weren't.

Possibly more important than this is that Sam Zell is already half a Californian, the owner of a $14 million Malibu home, where he and his wife already spend a good deal of time. In fact, Zell was in Malibu this past weekend when the deal for him to buy the Tribune Co. was closed. Those facts were mentioned in the coverage.

Under these circumstances, editors of the L.A. Times ought to put on a full court press to make Zell feel at home as owner of the paper.

It could well be that under his direction, the Times will become more friendly to Los Angeles' Jewish community, and a greater booster of California than it has been in recent years.

Zell's parents fled Poland just before Hitler marched in in 1939 and shortened their Polish name from Zielonska to Zell once they arrived in America. So Zell is anything but part of the WASP business community in Chicago.

He and his wife have already been flying into the Ventura County airport about half the weekends of the year, according to press reports this morning.

It could well be smart to promptly open Zell an office in the old Times-Mirror corporate headquarters downtown, and invite him to use it whenever he feels like staying out here. Before long, he may come to operate out of those offices.

Another good thing about this sale is that it finally gets rid of the Chandler family, which ever since easing Otis Chandler out of the L.A. Times publisher ship in 1980, has played a less and less constructive role in the history of the Times. The family is not only highly mercenary, but it has been little interested in the Times as a quality paper. Otis and his mother, Dorothy Buffum Chandler, may have been excellent people. The rest of their family was quite a bit less admirable.

Zell may become interested in journalism now that he is becoming chairman of the one of the largest media outfits in America.

In any case, he should be given every chance, and, under all these circumstances, be welcomed at the Times with open arms, until and unless, he gives reason for supporters and staff of the newspaper to feel otherwise.

Somehow, I think it has a good chance of working out, and that the Times could become a real California institution once again.

Sam Zell Gets The Tribune Company

--Written from Sacramento

It had become ever more clear in recent days that there was no way the inferior management of Tribune Co. in Chicago would accept any bid for the company that came from Californians.

Having dedicated themselves to mistreatment of the L.A. Times, its staff, its editors and its publishers, the leader of the "axis of stupidity," the inept CEO Dennis FitzSimons, and his Chicago-lining board kept pushing Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell to improve his bid to the level of the Los Angeles billionaires, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, so they could sell the enterprise to him.

We'll have to wait now to see what Zell does. Already, the report is that he will sell the Chicago Cubs, and if Broad and Burkle persevere, perhaps there is still a chance the L.A. Times could be sold to them. This would be the most desirable outcome.

The New York Times story this morning emphasizes that Zell has never been a journalist and quotes him as not having a high opinion of journalists. If this is correect, more trouble may lie ahead. On the other hand, now that he has obtained control of such a substantial journalistic company, maybe Zell will change his mind about journalists and decide to run a good company.

But for the time being, Zell is keeping present management in place. That is a bad sign, because FitzSimons has spun Tribune Co. and its newspapers into greater and greater difficulty, and the Zell purchase will, at least in the short run, unless there are a series of sales, only saddle Tribune with more debt.

Altogether, this is somewhat anti-climactic after all the maneuvers of recent months.

It will be interesting now to see whether Zell comes out to L.A. and what he says when he gets here. It is possible he realizes that changes have to be made not too far down the line, if he is to realize the profits from this deal he is said to require.

But the appearance here is that of an inside deal. I suppose we can untie David Hiller. It looks as if he will be the publisher of the Times for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, maybe we should send the Tribune board some food packages. It looks like they've been eating Chicago/s nororiously lousy food, and it has been warping their minds. Broad and Burkle would probably have been better, certainly more exciting and favorable to Los Angeles and California.

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NBC, cutting back its news costs, has not renewed the contract of the weekend news anchor, John Siegenthaler. That's not great news, because Siegenthaler has always done a capable job.

However, if Campbell Brown is named to succeed him, this may turn out fine. Ms. Brown is a terrific newscaster, and I for one have always liked her a great deal.

LAT Cutbacks Must Be Put In Abeyance During Bids

Now that it appears highly likely that the Tribune Co. will be sold to either Los Angeles billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle or to Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell, further cutbacks at the Los Angeles Times should be suspended. This would afford a chance for the new owners to set policy rather than the old ones who have failed so miserably.

In this vein, and, I assure you, not through any maliciousness of spirit, I might propose that Times publisher David Hiller ought to be rendered into a state of suspended animation while the maneuverings over the sale continue. He is a lame duck and should be permitted to do no further damage.

Security guards could bound Hiller in a strait jacket, tape his mouth and lay him face down in his office for the duration. I certainly feel there ought to be comfortable pads for him, and he could be force fed to prevent losing any weight. While he is immobile, he could listen to taped repetitions of Dean Baquet's speech to the newspaper convention in New Orleans, or converse with another man who probably would not survive a change in ownership, ditzy columnist Joel Stein.

Some might say this is all psychological torture, such as the kind that columnist Tim Rutten opposes for Islamic terrorists. But I think under the extraordinary circumstances at the Times, it is is the least we can do in safety and prudence.

In Jim Rainey's Business section story this morning, he carefully explains that even though the new Broad and Burkle offer appears to be a dollar better per share than Zell's offer, the Tribune board, which has a fiduciary duty to get the best deal it can for stockholders, must carefully examine all the intricacies to make sure that it indeed is a better offer.

Still, I notice that Broad and Burkle are offering to put $500 million cash out front to make the deal, while Zell so far has offered only $300 million.

The Tribune board, which is nothing if not greedy, has already set aside $269 million for golden parachutes for a host of executives that would be leaving under new owners (even though Zell has said he would keep present management at least initially). This was close to the $300 million cash Zell was offering out front.

But, now, with Broad and Burkle offering $500 million, the board can increase the golden parachutes. This may sound like it would be immoral, but I can assure you that such paltry considerations as morality would not stop the present board or discourage the Wall Street stock analysts who have foolishly supported them right along. After all, the board oversaw putting an inept oaf such as Dennis FitzSimons in as CEO of the company, and then rode with him down into the abyss of managerial disaster.

As I say, I put forward all these observations in a spirit of trying to be helpful.

Many other possibilities can be considered once the sale is consummated. Since much of the old Time-Mirror corporate offices are presently underused, a move of the corporate offices from Chicago to Los Angeles should be undertaken very quickly. This would allow the company under its new owners to sell the Tribune Tower in Chicago and move the Chicago Tribune, hopefully downsized into a tabloid, into new, less expensive quarters. As for the Chicago Cubs, I think it would be best to move them to a new city, where the team might have better fortunes, such as Oklahoma City or Omaha. A poll by the Chicago Sun-Times and reported in the L.A. Times Sports section today, shows that 73.5% of those responding feel the Tribune Co. has been grossly negligent in its management of the Cubs. That may be too kind an assessment.

FitzSimons, with his golden parachute, will not need new employment. But Hiller may not be ready to retire. I think he might be induced to go to work for his old Justice Department colleague, Ken Starr, if and when Starr returns to the Justice Department in place of Alberto Gonzales, who presumably will soon be forced to resign for perjuring himself to Congress.

Sam Zell Could Well Be Better Than FitzSimons

--Written from Palm Springs, California

Sam Zell may be a pig in the poke, because we know little or nothing about him, and his aspirations if he were to succeed in what the L.A. Times article by Jim Rainey yesterday called an increasingly serious bid to buy the Tribune Co.

But the odds are that Zell would be a more ambitious and constructive director than the inept Dennis FitzSimons, CEO of Tribune.

(A comment from a reader points out that Zell has compiled a substantive record saving companies in difficulties and has specifically done well in motorcycles and real estate. But what I meant in saying that Zell is a pig in the poke is that, like Mark Willes when he came to the L.A. Times from General Mills, Zell has no journalistic experience, so we don't know whether he would be at all sensitive to the peculiar requirements of honest journalism).

The first two Tribune papers to be sold in the ongoing disintegration of the company are the small papers in Stamford and Greenwich, Ct. They are going to Gannett for $73 million. Both were possessions of Times-Mirror before it was sold to Tribune.

The future of the L.A. Times and the other papers, including the Chicago Tribune, are still up for grabs. But the Tribune board is now reported to have dismissed the Broad-Burkle and Chandler family offers for the company as insufficient, and to be working on Zell to enhance his bid.

Zell, a Chicagoan who has made billions in real estate, might conceivably sell some more of the Tribune papers, if his bid were to be successful, just as McClatchy did some of the newspapers it purchased last year. David Geffen or Eli Broad might be able to buy the Times from him easier than from Tribune Co.

But if Zell were to keep the L.A. Times, it's hard to see how any smart businessman would opt to continue to downsize the newspaper.

Under FitzSimons, downsizing is on going, as shown by the disgraceful plan to lay off more employees and fold the book review into Current and move it to Saturdays.

FitzSimons, who has either had a lobotomy or needs one, has one policy -- and that is to diminish the Times and treat it as an unwanted step child every chance he gets. He remains positively dangerous to Los Angeles.

Zell might appreciate the potential in making some investments in the Times.

It reminds me a little of the death of Stalin when I was 15 in 1953. There were observers who thought Stalin would be replaced by someone worse. I thought at the time it was unlikely that any successor would prove worse than Stalin, and I was right.

If FitzSimons goes, and he and his fellow executives take their $269 million in severance already set aside with them, the chance would be that Zell, or any other buyer except Rupert Murdoch, would prove better.

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Patt Morrison has an outstanding column on the Times Op-Ed Page this morning extrapolating the frightful bombings and massacres in Iraq to California. It bears thinking about, that these terrorists could move their operations here, to to the destruction of USC, Westwood, Sacramento and so many other locales. That's what our troops in Iraq are fighting to prevent. It's not as outlandish a possibility as some would like it to be.

Excuses Abound On Why Tribune Can't Sell LAT

We've now gotten to the point where everybody is writing about why the inept Tribune Co. managers can't arrange to sell the L.A. Times and the company's other mishandled properties back into hands that would know how to successfully run them.

Generally speaking, the Chandler family is being blamed, often because it wants to avoid paying taxes on a sale, or, it was stated in a L.A. Times article, the federal strictures against a newspaper company also owning television stations in the same market areas where the papers are doing business in effect negate the chances of a sale.

But since the television stations could be put on sale separately from the newspapers, that is not much of an excuse. If federal policy on cross-ownership is maintained, some of these TV stations, like Channel 5 in Los Angeles, would have to be sold separately anyway.

As for the Chandlers, yes, the existing branches of the family, want to realize value out of a sale and, just like everyone, would like to minimize taxes.

But can we blame the Chandlers for this? When the Chandlers had Times-Mirror sold to the Tribune Co. in 2000, they had as much reason as the rest of us for thinking they had entered into a sound deal. The leaders of Tribune Co. pledged to run good newspapers and to accord the L.A. Times an honored place within their business.

Who could have foreseen that Tribune would change leadership, elevating Dennis FitzSimons into a position he turned out to be utterly unqualified for, and that FitzSimons and his choice as Tribune president, Scott Smith, would immediately start downsizing all their papers and failing to invest money in circulation and Web site improvements, investments which are essential these days to keep papers in sound financial positions?

So, we reached the point last spring, where, alarmed both at the way things were going, and FitzSimons' remedies -- a stock buyback and continuing cutbacks of all kinds -- that promised nothing but disaster, the three Chandler members of the Tribune board rehired Tom Unterman, and solicited a breakup of the company, or sale of selected properties. Maybe, Jeffrey Chandler was viewed as unusually dumb, even among the surviving Chandlers, by people who knew him. Still, he and the other two Chandler representatives on the Tribune board were not being wrong in wanting out at that point.

As the New York Times said Saturday in a column Saturday by Joe Nocera, the time for a sale proved not to be propitious. The very ineptitude of the FitzSimons management made the Tribune newspapers less enticing a deal, and then the firing of publishers and editors at the L.A. Times came just at a moment when investors were looking. Getting rid of Dean Baquet at the L.A. Times alone was a powerful disincentive to making a satisfactory offer for the Times. Immediately, indeed, the Times lost some of its value.

So, it's proved difficult to arrange the kind of deal either the Chandlers or the mismanaging Chicago businessmen who run Tribune would like.

But that does not mean that Tribune ought not to go ahead and take the best offer it has.

Things are not going to get better under the present ownership, which simply does not know what to do. It is out of sound ideas. FitzSimons actually never had any.

It's clear from what the Chandlers have been telling associates privately that they would enter into arrangements, the best they could get. It's only the stubbornness of FitzSimons and his crew of incompetents that really prevents going ahead.

Sometimes, if you're totally witless, such as FitzSimons and his associates, you have to sell for less than you hoped to get.



Can we really blame them for this?

Chilling Rupert Murdoch Participation In Chandler Bids For Tribune

It can only be regarded as chilling news that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is revealed as a participant in the Chandler family bid for the Tribune Co. Although its interest would be a minority one, and is specifically mentioned as a means of consolidating some Newsday operations with those of Murdoch's New York Post, it certainly cannot be completely excluded that Murdoch also could end up, if the Chandler bid is successful, with some control over the L.A. Times.

The whole thing is quite mysterious, because sources acquainted with Murdoch's role say he does not expect that Tribune Co. will accept any bid from the Chandlers, who have clashed with the company CEO, the inept Dennis FitzSimons. But if he does not expect the bid to be successful, then why is he wasting his time participating in it?

Stalin once remarked that communism fit Poland "like a saddle fits an ox." And the same kind of thing might be said of a Murdoch fit at the L.A. Times. Los Angeles is a liberal city. It is hard to see a Murdoch publication being very successful in Los Angeles. Still, as I say, the prospect that Murdoch could come to have a role at the Times is, indeed, chilling, because his journalistic policies are reactionary.

Meanwhile, it's also reported this morning that the Burkle/Broad bid for Tribune will not actually expire imminently, nor will it be rejected for now by Tribune. FitzSimons told the Tribune Co. staff in an e-mail that a decision on all bids and the future of Tribune will be made by March 31. The Burkle/Broad bid is enticing in respect to its promise of a $27-per-share dividend to shareholders, including the Chandlers.

Ever since it was divulged last week that the greedy Tribune executives have set aside $269 million for themselves as golden parachutes, I've tended to believe the company will be sold.

The reason is that FitzSimons, David Hiller and the whole "axis of stupidity" that has been running Tribune have absolutely no good ideas for restoring the company to prosperity were they to continue to run it. They are failures in the present business environment, and must realize that.

No, I believe there will be a sale, or at least a sale of part of the company.

From the L.A. Times point of view, the best to be hoped for now is a sale of the paper to entertainment mogul David Geffen or the Burkle/Broad interests. They both are based in Los Angeles, they have an interest in the paper, and Geffen, in particular, is liberal in his political instincts and in sync with Los Angeles. Despite reports of an arbitrary temper, Geffen would be the best fit.

A sale to a Chandler-Murdoch consortium would be bad news, reviving memories of how right wing most of the Chandler family has been. It was the family, after all, that did in Otis Chandler and his more centrist branch in the days before the L.A. Times began deteriorating as an editorial product.

$269 Million Set Aside For Incompetent Tribune Executives

One of the most shocking things about American corporate life is that the dumber the executives are, the more they get when everything crashes down and they are forced to leave.

I'm not talking about the jail terms they often deserve. I'm talking about the golden parachutes set aside for the miscreants.

So, it's really not surprising that it turns out that if the squalid Tribune Co. does take one of the offers it has solicited for its newspapers and television stations, a whopping $269 million has already been set aside for the executives who have driven the country into the ground, diminishing the quality of all its newspapers and laying people off by the hundreds.

Dennis FitzSimons, Scott Smith, David Hiller and 47 other top people at the company -- who have wrecked so many professional lives and have proven their incompetence time and time again -- would walk off with all these millions, so that they could live luxurious lives until they die and probably go straight to hell. Divine justice, is, of course, more appropriately retributive than human justice.

Executive by executive, it is not as great an amount as Mark Willes stole from Times-Mirror when he was ousted as CEO in the ill-fated sale to the Tribune Co. Willes got at least $64 million, and perhaps, according to reports, as much as $105 million. Then, he had the gall to even take the cold drinks in his office refrigerator. And this was a man who supposedly came from a religious family. even if he had grossly violated journalistic ethics in the Staples scandal.

If the Tribune executives now had any sense of values at all, they would leave without a whimper, proven failures in years of tomfoolery.

But there is one bright side to the news about the set-asides: That is that with so much at stake for these executives, the chance they will accept one of the offers made for the company may be brighter than Wall Street analysts have predicted. When the Tribune board meets today to consider the Broad-Burkle, Chandler and Carlyle offers for all or part of the company, the $269 million may be a potent card on the table. We are dealing here, of course, with greedy men.

On Saturday, the Tribune board met for several hours to consider what to do but adjourned with no action. It issued a statement saying the board is considering its next moves, which might include action by the company to keep itself going. This would be the most foolish thing it could do, since there is no prospect this woebegone company could aright itself.

Meanwhile, Tim Rutten has a column in the L.A. Times today in which he makes the incredible closing statement that "it doesn't matter" where the new owners of the L.A. Times and the other Tribune properties reside, because, Rutten opines, local ownership of newspapers "is not an end to itself."

Much as I usually respect Rutten, I think on this he is all wrong.

It does make a difference that a great Los Angeles institution like the L.A. Times is owned locally, because the odds are that a locally-owned institution will be more beholden to the public interest in the community than one living, as Rutten puts it, in "Davenport, Iowa, or the dark side of the moon."

The dark side of the moon may be the place for the permanent home of FitzSimons and Hiller. With their share of the $269 million, they could afford to hire a well-equipped spaceship and go and live there.

But a Los Angeles newspaper should be owned by Los Angelenos.

Broad/Burkle Bid For Tribune Co. Not Satisfactory, Chandler Bid We Don't Know

There are at least three bids for all or part of the foundering Tribune Co. But none of them at this point appears to be too promising.

The next step is for the Tribune board to meet Saturday to consider its next steps. But it may decide to do nothing, or seek more talks and clarification.

I don't think much of the bid of Eli Broad and Ron Burkle to pay a $27 dividend for each outstanding share of Tribune stock and assume a 31% control and leadership of Tribune. It would saddle the Tribune Co. with huge, new debt, and contain no real guarantees against more cost cutting at Tribune-owned newspapers.

This murky offer apparently entails a pledge to leave the headquarters of Tribune in Chicago, an inferior city, and leave Dennis FitzSimons and his axis of stupidity in their present places. This is crazy. It's like leaving a dead Ken Lay in his old post at Enron. FitzSimons and his Los Angeles lackey, David Hiller, should be "out-sourced" to northern Manitoba and left to build their own cabin.

(Chicago boosters are determined to defend the indefensible. They insist their city is up-to-snuff. They particularly accuse me of being irresponsibly negative about Chicago food. A comment below says I am basing this only on having Mexican food at Midway Airport. But this is a false accusation. My Mexican food experience was at a downtown Chicago restaurant that had the poor grace to serve enchiladas filled with potatoes. More recently, I ate in an "Italian restaurant" there that did not serve Italian food. Chicago Asian food has been woeful. I've eaten better in Moscow than I have in Chicago, and while I don't blame all this on the Tribune Co., it is surely the case they are responsible for the poor food at the Cubs' stadium. Chicago, an inferior city? That's a no-brainer. And I've spent, unhappily, a considerable time in Chicago. When I was with Life magazine in the 1960s, I lived there several months, assigned to their Chicago bureau. I was there on numerous political and insurance stories, and attended a reunion there in 2002. I've been there often enough to be able to state authoritatively how lousy and second rate it is. It's not only that in the Tribune, it has a lousy newspaper)..

Any deal that doesn't put the L.A. Times in new hands and preferably bring Dean Baquet back as editor, while kicking Hiller out of town, leaves a lot to be desired.

In short, the Broad/Burkle offer doesn't have a good odor.

The Chandler bid has to be fleshed out. The key question is what would happen to the Times. Also, there is a minority interest in the Chandler offer that has not as yet even been identified.

The other bid is for the 23 TV stations only, and so has little to do with the future of the Times.

We're going to have to wait to learn more. In the meantime, it would be encouraging were FitzSimons and Hiller to disembowel themselves, so others can come forward to make the decisions.

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Time, Inc. laid off 289 employees today, and Time announced it is closing its Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles bureaus. This is the first time in many years that the magazine will have no full-time reporters in Los Angeles, and shows how the city is being treated badly, and not only by Tribune.

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.

Crunch Time Coming In Deciding Future Of Tribune Co. And L.A. Times

It was reported last week that bids are expected Jan. 17 for parts or all of the Tribune Co. The crunch time may well be coming, therefore, in the protracted drama over the future of the Los Angeles Times, which has been languishing under injurious Tribune control for seven years.

In this context, I hear from someone who is probably a good source that William Steinhart, Jr., a Chandler family representative on the Tribune board, is telling associates that the Chandler family, which controls 20% of Tribune stock, will join one of the billionaire bidders in purchasing the Times, although the family will not directly participate in running the newspaper itself.

Such a plan would avert otherwise serious tax consequences for the family should the sale of the Times be structured in some other way.

Both the Chandler family representatives, and their advisor, Thomas Unterman, have had nothing to say publicly for quite a while about their plans. Including Steinhart, three Chandler family representatives sit on the Tribune board, where they have clashed with the company's CEO, the notoriously inept Dennis FitzSimons.

The heart of the Chicago establishment which controls the Tribune, the five Robert R. McCormick Foundation trustees, hired outside counsel last week as a possible preparation for their role in any unraveling or sale of Tribune.

Among these foundation trustees is David Hiller, the usurping publisher of the L.A. Times, who, naturally, is loyal to the Chicago interests which gave him the Times publishership when Jeffrey Johnson was ousted.

If the Times were sold to a local bidder and the Chandler family, Hiller would probably be immediately ousted from the Times publishership, and it is also possible that Dean Baquet, the editor Hiller fired, would be brought back as Times editor.

I freely acknowledge there is considerable speculation in these reports. I have not talked to Steinhart personally, feeling it would be fruitless to seek any confirmation from him. We're now just going to have to watch and wait, although with increased anticipation. We should know what's going to happen soon.

--

In a move which is not going to help the Times, the newspaper's press operators voted 140-131 to be represented by a union, the Teamsters. This is a reflection of the unpopularity of Hiller, far beyond his depth in Los Angeles, and could impede a sale of the paper. The press operators, calculating that Tribune will stay in control, may have stabbed themselves in the back.

The Inept CEO, Dennis FitzSimons, May Be Plotting To Keep Control of the L.A. Times

I have, I think quite generously and in understated language, called Dennis FitzSimons, the CEO of the Tribune Co., head of an "axis of stupidity." All you have to do is look at his photo in the Business section of today's L.A. Times to realize he is not very bright. He has that wide-eyed stare of the very ignorant.

In any case, here is a man who has been in control of one of the nation's great newspapers, the L.A. Times, but has been responsible for driving the newspaper into the ground, foolishly cutting it back every way he could think of, and has therefore presided over a declining stock price and has come under pressure to sell out, and take his lack of talent elsewhere.

But, judging from Jim Rainey's story in the Times this morning, FitzSimons seems to want to hold on.

This is a little like Mussolini holding on. The Italian dictator hung on so long he ended up dangling feet up and dead as a door nail, the victim of his outraged fellow countrymen. I certainly wish a better fate for FitzSimons. If he clears out now, he can take a golden parachute and go home and live with his family, where he probably would do less harm than he has up to now.

But, according to Rainey, as the Chandler family desperately tries to recoup its fortunes from its dramatically dumb move in 2000 to sell Times-Mirror to the Tribune Co., with perhaps its own offer to buy back parts of the company, FitzSimons is working with Wall Street investment firms on a leveraged buyout of the Tribune Co.

Here's a man who's too blind to know what a fool he's been or how poor his prospects are.

Under FitzSimons, there's no way this company, and all its newspapers and tv stations, to go but down. If he succeeds in holding on, not only the L.A. Times, but all his enterprises will be wrecked.

David Geffen, the entertainment mogul, has made a perfectly-sound, all cash offer for the Times. If FitzSimons had any smarts at all, he would take it.

But we all know he has no smarts.

This is a sad story -- how the most inept, screwy managers maintain themselves.

I think it's time for the U.S. Justice Department to get involved, so that an investigation might push FitzSimons into a sale, before he blunders so badly he has to follow Enron executives, such as Jeffrey Skilling, into a longtime jail term.

As Geffen Makes An Offer, And Baquet Continues To Hope To Return, FitzSimons Dithers

Just what is going on with the Los Angeles Times and a possible sale of the newspaper to more ambitious local interests?

It seems that Dennis FitzSimons, the Tribune CEO and prime business screw up, is dithering, although it's also possible that Chandler family interests aren't too welcoming of an all-cash $2 billion offer for the paper by entertainment mogul David Mogul. The Chandlers would want to structure any deal in a way that would cost them a minimum of taxes. The Geffen offer may not fit that desire.

Perhaps, Geffen should negotiate directly with Thomas Unterman, the Chandler family financial advisor, try to structure a deal with him and then get him to put pressure on FitzSimons to consummate the deal. Perhaps the Chandlers could maintain an interest in a Geffen proprietorship.

L.A. Times media correspondent Jim Rainey had two articles in the paper Thursday pertaining to the future of the Times. It is unusual for a paper to devote so much space to its own prospective purchase, but Rainey's articles continue to appear, and I like some better than others.

The new publisher sent out by Chicago, David Hiller, fired editor Dean Baquet in November, but now he allows an article to appear that reports Baquet maintains hopes of making a comeback. Is it conceivable that Hiller, now that he has been here awhile, has realized just how popular Baquet was in the community, and may harbor some thought himself of bringing him back.

This is probably unlikely. Under what terms could the two men work together? It is more likely, as Baquet apparently feels, that a new owner would bring Baquet back as editor.

Baquet is not exactly behaving as a dismissed editor. He continues to appear at social events with Times personnel, and he has reportedly been in contact with Eli Broad, another prospective Times buyer. He has remained in Los Angeles, does respond to messages, and he is holding on for a possible purchase. We don't know what kind of severance arrangement Baquet has with the Times. It could bge he can afford to wait a few months to see what happens.

But is a purchase likely? The Tribune Co. neither accepted nor rejected the Geffen offer and is said to be waiting to see about offers for the whole company. So far, they have reportedly been disappointing. Of course, it is possible a deal could be structured like the McClatchy purchase of newspapers, where it promptly turned over some of the papers it purchased. But it is also possible, as I wrote earlier in the week that FitzSimons wants to hold on.

So far, at least, there have been no major new layoffs at the Times, despite the fact that Baquet was reportedly fired for publicly resisting such layoffs. This may indicate that both FitzSimons and Hiller are waiting for a deal. I hope so.

Chandler Family Moves To Expedite A Sale Of Tribune Co.

--Written from San Francisco

The New York Times reports today that elements of the Chandler family represented by Thomas Unterman are moving to expedite a sale of parts of the Tribune Co., including, presumably, the L.A. Times, by encouraging new offers and perhaps participating in them.

This indicates the procedures leading to a possible sale are not moving fast enough to suit them, possibly because the offers thus far have not been high enough to satisfy the greedy. starry-eyed Tribune management, and possibly because that management -- CEO Dennis FitzSimons and his axis of stupidity -- is stalling in hopes of hanging on.

As the situation slowly develops, more than 100 Newsday reporters and editors have written FitzSimons a letter, objecting anew to all the cutbacks that have pared the Newsday staff by a third and dramatically reduced the scope of what that newspaper covers.

Newsday, of course, is another formerly Times-Mirror-owned paper. Its editor, John Mancini, quickly responded, "I applaud the passion and dedication of the (Newsday) staff...but I still think we are all putting out a great newspaper."

Mancini undoubtedly wants to make at least an honorable gesture to the staff, while at the same time not quite falling into the rebellion that cost Dean Baquet his job at the L.A. Times.

Speaking of Baquet, I notice that David Hiller, the new Times publisher who fired him, is now pleading with Times employees not to vote to allow the Teamsters union to represent them.

This is one subject upon which I agree with Hiller. It would not serve the staff in the long run, I believe, to unionize, and I always opposed it while working at the paper. Unions, by and large, no more care for the quality of newspapers than corporate managers like FitzSimons.

Hiller declares, in a memo to the staff, "I came out here with the mission of keeping the Times a great newspaper, and changing it, and making it better."

There are glimmers of hope in this assurance, but if Hiller really desired to keep the Times a great newspaper, he would not have fired Baquet.

Nonetheless, the reported decision to reduce the summary pages in Section A and restore Page 3 as a foreign news page, is one we can all agree with. It is said this is being done in accord with design editor Joe Hutchinson, which is a face saving gesture to him, but, after all, Hutchinson was partially responsible for the idiotic decision to have two summary pages before. I'd feel a lot better if he were leaving for Chicago, permanently.

Now, if only Hiller will decide to do away with the new silly type faces, another Hutchinson idea which the readers overwhelmingly don't like, I at least would say a good word for the new publisher. After all, when Hitler invaded Russia, Winston Churchill had a good word to say for Stalin in the House of Commons.

Hiller could of course become a good guy, if he called Baquet and offered him his old job back, with full authority.

In the meantime, let's hope the sale of the L.A. Times to a publicly-spirited local owner, will procede, by one means or another.

As Tribune Co. Dithers On A Sale, Advertisers Seek Lower Rates At LAT

Time is not on the side of Dennis FitzSimons, the inept CEO of the Tribune Co. The longer he waits to sell off the assets of the failing company, the less he is going to get for them.

This becomes clear in reviewing two new developments along the long road of deteriorating prospects for the Tribune Co., owner of the L.A. Times and other former Times-Mirror newspapers.

First, FitzSimons announced this week another three-month delay in making decisions as to what to do about selling off Tribune assets. Contrary to earlier statements that a decision would be made by the end of the year, FitzSimons now haplessly says it will be the end of the first quarter of 2007 before a decision is announced. The apparent reason is that bids for Tribune assets have been disappointingly low thus far.

And why not? After the Tribune ousted or lost two publishers and two editors at the L.A. Times, it doesn't take an economic genius to conclude the Tribune assets are simply worth less than they once were. And the way things are going, they will be worth less and less the longer FitzSimons waits. It's like someone on death row. He desperately seeks to delay his execution, but in the meantime, he isn't eating and sleeping well, and his condition goes downhill.

Second, the Los Angeles Business Journal reports, key advertisers at the Times, such as Macy's and several big local auto dealers, are confirming that, due to Times circulation losses, they will press for lower advertising rates in the new year.

This is hardly surprising, since Times circulation is down 8% in the latest report and 15% since the last advertising rates were posted. (Times circulation is actually down by more than one-third, or 450,000, since Tribune Co. bought the paper in 2000).

Tribune total revenue has been flat or sinking, and stock is down by almost 40%. On every hand, the signs accumulate that FitzSimons, president Scott Smith, and such Chicago toadies as David Hiller and James O'Shea, newly designated publisher and editor of the Times, continue to drive the company into the ground.

I was told by a Times staffer this week that O'Shea hasn't even been spending much time in Los Angeles. The fading 63-year-old is reported to have returned to Chicago for medical treatment Thanksgiving week and then spent the whole week with his wife in Chicago.

It would all make a lot of sense were a sale being expedited. Then Hiller and O'Shea could disappear from California forever, but since a sale has been put off, one would normally expect they would be here, manning their posts, even if the ship is sinking. If O'Shea and Hiller had been in command of the Titanic, they may have jumped ship within 15 minutes of it striking the iceburg.

A show of hands at the Old Farts lunch this week found only one of the 60 persons present against a sale of the L.A. Times.

But, so far, there is little sign FitzSimons is listening. Unlike his underlings, he may choose to go down with the ship.

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As Hezbollah demonstrations began today in Beirut, aimed at bringing down the pro-Western government and putting Iran and Syria in charge, Megan Stack, in a page 1 story in today's L.A. Times, reported that the United Arab Emirates, a Sunni state which is close to Saudi Arabia, has armed a new 13,000-member security force devoted to protecting the government of Premier Fouad Siniora. This is a heartening development, showing that the Lebanese government may have an armed defense after all. I just wonder if Vice President Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia last week may have had something to do with protecting Siniora and thwarting Iranian and Syrian aggression. It's hard to believe the United Arab Emirates would have acted on its own. Stack, by the way, clearly scooped the New York Times' correspondent in Lebanon, Michael Slackman, with her report.

Some Thoughts On Latest Developments Regarding The L.A. Times

There are so many developments these days regarding the possible sale and breakup of the dysfunctional Tribune Co., and revival of the L.A. Times, hopefully under local control. And, of course, I have some reactions.

I continue to hope that local entrepreneurs, preferably David Geffen, will be able to buy the Times. I kind of shudder when I read this morning that Gannett may make a bid to buy the whole company, that retired insurance magnate Maurice Greenberg may put in a bid or even that Rupert Murdoch may try to buy the Times.

Such outcomes would be very disappointing. After this long struggle that has been taking place, we have to hope speculators, poor-quality newspaper publishers or conservative extremists such as Murdoch do not end up with the Times.

As for Harry Chandler's suggestion in Sunday's Current section that the paper become community-owned, this may be well meaning but is not really feasible. If the Chandler family wishes to prove its good will and regard for the newspaper it once owned, its representatives on the Tribune board should push for a sale to Geffen or some other Los Angeles bidder.

I was a little taken aback when the ousted editor, Dean Baquet, sounded so understanding and collegial in an interview with Editor and Publisher that he even gave reason to understand the new editor sent here by the Tribune had his backing.

This is nonsense. When David Hiller, the Tribune's third publisher in Los Angeles, told Baquet he was through, the proper reaction by Baquet would have been to punch him in the nose.

There should be no welcoming any of the Tribune nominees to be its gauleiters in Los Angeles. If the paper should be sold, God willing, they will not last a week in their jobs.

Meanwhile, two Times columnists, Tim Rutten and Steve Lopez, continue to exhibit outstanding courage and understanding in writing as they do about the Times and its troubles, Lopez in a blog just out, Rutten in last Saturday's column.

When this nightmare is over, prizes will be handed out to those who resisted the Tribune management, and, at that time, Rutten and Lopez, and also, I suspect, Jim Rainey will get the plaudits they deserve.

Lopez, incidentally, refers unfavorably to a meaningless Times ad in the blog. I just wonder whether the hapless design director, Joe Hutchinson, had something to do with this. Whatever Hutchinson puts his hand to has turned out abysmally.

Geffen Is The Best Bet For The Times; Maybe Tribune Can Be Enjoined Prior To Sale

--written from London

David Geffen, because of his lofty ambitions for the L.A. Times, would, in my view be the best possible buyer for the newspaper.

But I do not presume, no should anyone, that the squalid Tribune Co., and its lackey, David Hiller, can be counted on to act in good faith, or even to make a sale if it would be in the best business interests of Tribune. If Hiller, for example, was really looking to enhance the value of the Times in a sale, he would not have fired Dean Baquet. No, this creep may be egomanically trying to actually continue as publisher, realizing he would not last a day under a new owner, Geffen or anyone else.

I wonder in these circumstances, whether some legal action could be taken to enjoin Tribune Co. from further destructive moves pending a sale. Might there be some judge in Los Angeles who would issue an injunction at this point to save the paper in the public interest?

In the meantime, the vise of reality may be closing in on Tribune, FitzSimons, Smith, Hiller and all that motley crew.

They are driving the Times into the ground and everyone knows it.

Of course, I've known honorable lawyers and have friends who are judges, but by and large I learned long ago that anyone who attended Harvard Law School, as Hiller did, must be presumed immoral until he or she proves otherwise.

By firing Baquet, even if it were on orders, Hiller proved himself unfit, and the only real hope now is that negotiations with Geffen or another buyer can proceed with all speed.

In the meantime, we have to take heart. Anyone fired now for resisting these Huns will probably be rehired later.

But perhaps something could be done in the courts to freeze the situation.