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As more and more ink-stained wretches flee the Tribune Tower like rats from the proverbial sinking ship, the Sun-Times tells us that the building itself might be up for grabs. And if you've ever gazed up at the Tower and thought of its architectural marvelousness (and consider what might have been!), maybe you'd be interested in dropping the estimated $250 million that Sam Zell might charge for it.
But can you imagine someone turning it into a bunch of condominiums? It's happened to so many other buildings around the city, but the Tribune Tower? For serious? Maybe. When Zell announced he was putting the tower up for sale, conventional wisdom said that they'd retain the right to sign a long-term lease in the building. But scuttlebutt has it that Zell is considering just getting rid of the place entirely...for the right price.
Although a third of the building is apparently empty (can we move the Chicagoist offices there?), the remaining half-dozen staffers would have to move somewhere else in the event of this kind of deal going through. S-T says they'd most likely move to the printing facility in River North, but our suggestion? See if you can't grab a few floors in the old Chicago Daily News building, aka Riverside Plaza. There would be a sweet sort of irony in moving the Trib to where a long-dead paper used to thrive.
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When will the people of Chicago rise as one and drive Sam Zell's greedy ass into the lake?
Does the man have to burn down the Water Tower or piss on the Picasso.
You bring the pitchforks, I'll bring the torches.
I don't know why Zell is villified for trying to save the real sinking ship which is the newspaper industry. The shear cost of operating an office building on Michigan avenue, yet alone an old one that I'm sure is riddled with repair costs and damages would be enough to balloon already massive budgets out of control. Nobody likes change, but it's whats required to keep things relevant. You've been living under a rock if you don't think drastic measures need to be undertaken in the newspapers industry. Zell might be greedy, but he also isn't dumb enough to just let companies slowly die.
Why is anyone suprised that somebody would make drastic cost reducing moves to a business that teeters on financial ruin??
Maybe this makes total sense when you consider a real estate mogul bought the Tribune.
Because he's doing a crap job of it and is going to sink a useful source of local news because he financed this purchase not from his wealth, but largely with leveraged debt which one should never do if the industry in question is, as you say, a sinking ship.
I would be so sad if Zell turned the Trib tower into condos. I have very fond memories of growing up there (so to speak). My grandfather worked there for quite a few years, and my brother and I would sometimes go with him to work. That is such a great building.
A crap job of it? He's made more moves in less than a years time than the old gaurd did in 10 years.
And I'll take business advice from Zell 1,000 times over before I ask a poster on Chicagoist- although maybe not the greatest man on earth, is one of the smartest business men.
Listen, what's going to "save" newspapers is local focus. Becoming USA Today with the occasional Chicago story (hi Red eye!) doesn't work and just drives away more readers. You make your product more and more indistinguishable, more broad, less deep, trying to appeal to everyone, interesting no one.
Newspapers are going to live or die by how good they are at generating content no one else has, finding stories other people aren't even looking for. Dumping reporters, treating editors like slow kids and giving your front page a face lift are all varying degrees of useless.
That's just the money side. Let's not even get into the notion that the press is supposed to do more than just run AP stories and keep Susnnah Homan in cocktails. You want an aggressive, locally-focused media. Sam Zell wants more money. He could have more more and keep the newspaper's soul and mission, but it's less than selling off the tribune and all it's pieces piecmiel so he can't be bothered.
I've posted the link more than once, go find the NPR story with Zell on a tirade at his editors. The man's a petty thug contractor. The kind of guy my family in the trades has works for for years. He micro-manages good people and suck the life from them to maximize every goddamn dime he can get. Screw the future, screw the city, screw history and the free press, put more money in his iron-pressed jeans.
The man is an ambulatory compost heap. Those of you saying how you would take his word over anyone on here, you're not one iota better.
So by "save," I assume you mean "turn into tabloid".
I'm not denying the man can be a jack ass. That doesn't have anything to do with business savvy. I agree with you 100% about the types of stories that should be in local newspapers. But, as countless layoffs suggest, that's not the direction local print news can go. The internet has made it way to easy for people to NOT read a newspaper in a myriad of ways. For years, across the country newspapers have been dying, they aren't going to make a miraculous recovery without a significant philisophical change. Unfortunetaly that means never looking the same as the 'good 'ol days'.
The description you give of zell isn't any different than how the newspaper industry has been over the past century! They all are trying to squeeze dimes and make sure reporters are their bitches. There's no loyalty in the industry, sure you have your one or two mainstays at a newspaper but by and large they have been ever changing with reporters and editors who hold grudges against everybody that has ever crossed them.
mepps -- the Zell is not trying to "save" the Trib. It's quite the contrary. He's essentially piecemealing the company off little by little. The Cubs, Wrigley Field, the Trib Tower, it's employees ... revamping the paper to make it lighter, less coverage, more ads. The paper is a shell (a very thin one at that) of it's former self. Instead, he's chose to add beef where the money is and that's in broadcasting. WGN got the green light to pick up the Blackhawks broadcasting rights, which should pay huge dividends immediately. Further, WGN has become a "superstation" -- which means more syndicated bullshit television shows, which means more advertising air time, which means more money.
Zell could give a shit what's in the paper, who reads the paper - or if there's a fucking paper. Given that the Trib has fallen severely in the ranks of credibility and more importantly, coverage (sorry, but the whole series on how they'll help you fix your problems is nice, but it's not winning any Pulitzer's) of local issues. There is the occassional gem, but there are far too few of them.
Yes, there will always be an online version, which will likely be as appetizing to read as drinking watered-down Yoohoo! Zell savvy - sure in that he'll basically cut your throat if you disagree with him.
Jmagic- WGN has been a superstation for far longer than Zell has owned them, also WGN used to be THE station for Hawks back in the day when EVERYBODY used to watch the hawks. WGN will be showing only 20 games this season, which is also much more of a product of the new hawks front office than any negotiating by Zell!!
Not sure what your point is.
@Mepps:
You're missing the forest for the trees. Local focus is what people want, they're just not getting it from newspapers. The slowness to realize, and capitalize, on the internet has been, and very well could still be, a death blow. Hoping that the nerds will just go away and we can all get back to doing serious news is just painfully naive, and yet I hear it all the time from people in the profession.
Zell could be putting money into moving the trib into the future. He could be building for the long-term, but jmagic nailed it, he's not here to praise Caesar, he's here to sell his kitan at 5 drachma a square.
Frankly, I don't think papers will survive by print publishing. I think the transition to online only newspapers is coming. And when we get there, what stories are you going to want to get from your Trib? Another wire story you can get any place? Or local focus? If you don't build those networks starting yesterday, you're doomed.
Like I said, I agree. I think you are missing the point that the internet news is NOT based on news from the Trib or Suntimes. People can go to any site they want for news, and do. If the Tribune went internet only, that does not mean more people will read it. If I like reading John Smiths personal blog, news, and live updates from city meetings he goes to as a private citizen, doesn't mean I'll switch to the same from the Trib just because a 'real' journalist is doing the same thing. Whether print published or not, the entire philosophy of news has changed with the internet, the newspaper industry has just been extremely slow in realizing they are a relic of the past and that they need to fundamentally change.
If the Trib went internet only, which it is pushing (I received an email yesterday that I could get a "full" internet version of the paper for only $2.97/week -- WTF $2.97?), I think people would go there to get their local coverage if there is some. I don't want to read Joe Blow's blog on the city council meeting, mostly because it's going to be slanted one way or another to fit within their needs and beliefs. It's like reading Fox and Michelle Malkin vs. Slate and NYT blogs. Sometimes, most times, we need "real" journalists to cover the news objectively. I like to live in a bubble sometimes and get my news from the blogs, but I know it comes with a grain of sarcasm and leaning. Besides ... where do you think bloggers get their "news?" 90% of the time their "story" is littered with tags from other news outlets and they just fill in the gaps with their own takes. We still need those news hubs - we need the local focus.
The Trib still gives us some objectivity -- which is something that we still need. We need to be presented with both sides fairly. This city needs a publication with local focus. The Reader, for a long time, was a publication that I picked up for that, but that too is just a shell since Creative Loafing bought it out.
You're missing the point Mepps on Zell - He doesn't care about any of this shit. He only cares about how much money he can get out of it. The Trib is just another product to pitch, another item to sell. Some of us still like that fabric (the local newspaper) that holds things together. I like having a newspaper to pick up and read about our local issues, but that is going away, and Zell doesn't care. He's not a journo, he's not even a media guy - he's a real estate mogul with $$$ on the mind and the flailing Trib is just getting in the way. You can't turn a newspaper into a cash cow - we all know that.
Two things you lose credibility with- 1, you think NYTimes and Slate is unbiased and that the Trib gives objectivity, and 2, you say the Trib is getting in the way of his money- he JUST bought the damn paper, how is it getting in the way? If that were the case he would never have bought it!!
Another one of the problems with 'real' journalist IS the bias. I just want to read the news, I don't want to know what your opinion is. Journalists call themselves objective, but if you really read their articles quite a few can be shockingly full of opinion and bias.
never said the NYT and Slate were unbiased - I was giving right vs. left - foolio.
Secondly, you buy to sell right? I mean, the only reason Zell bought this rag is to sell it off -- am I right? My whole point asshat is that he purchased the Trib and the Cubs and Wrigley to sell it off - he had no intentions of reviving the thing or moving it forward. He has cut staff at every major newspaper of the company and has basically said it's up for grabs.
Read between the lines -- you've been reading too many blogs.
Timely post this a.m. by Chicagoist regarding Trib's editor's email.
You'll understand better when you read it.