Sam Zell … dead

The flaw in the logic of this tweet is that the author does not acknowledge that the entire newspaper industry went to hell in the recession of 2008-2009 and has kept sinking since, not just the Tribune. The last 15 years would have played out at the Tribune Company in the same painful fashion n matter who owned it.

 

I'm thankful for Sam Zell.

He overpaid for my 8,000 shares of Tribune Company stock, shelling out $34/share when the price was headed below $10 like every other newspaper company.

Yeah, he bankrupted the Trib, but the layoffs started before he got there and would have continued had he never been there. Tribune was $4 billion in debt when he came aboard. They were never going to be able to pay that off without some kind of restructuring.

 

Like many media companies, Tribune Company was teetering near a cliff when Zell came along. He pushed them off that cliff by adding billions in debt, then hiring radio guys to run the newspaper side, all of which forced the bankruptcy, caused the split of the company to print and broadcast sides, with the broadcast side owning the print real estate, further forcing the newspapers to cut, cut, cut. He should have stuck with flipping apartments and office buildings.

 

Here for the obligatory "puppies!" reference.

Fuck this guy. Not much better than Bob Jelenic.

 

Who gives a shit? He’s gone.

 

so much damage done, so these guys can pretend to be magicians with investments and have posters laud them for reinvigorating 'distressed properties'

(if ever anything applied to that it's newspapers in the 2000s and 2010s)

 

The Last Tycoon.

 

Randy Michaels sucked as a newspaperman. Probably sucked some, too, as a radioman but I'm only vaguely familiar with that part of his history.

 

Randy Michaels was the brains behind what is now iHeart.

 

Dude wasn't even IN The Client he sucked so bad.

 

Between Sir Conrad and Zell, the Windy City has been battered enough.

 

He loved his money. Let it love him back.