Sam Zell, a real estate guy who knows very little about the newspaper industry, bought Tribune in 2007 largely using loans and debt. He regrets it.source
The company went bankrupt last year, and in the process of radical rethinking, laid off tons of people – both in Chicago and nationwide. source
Now, it sounds like Zell might have an out – bankers and investors could forgive his debt in exchange for the company. Wow. That’s … wow. source
Google, with their charitable arm, Google.org, was once interested in buying a paper that wanted to carry non-profit status. They were also offered a stake in The New York Times. source
CEO Eric Schmidt said that the company ultimately decided that the debt load was too high and that they didn’t want to be on the other side of the news-aggregation plate. Good move. source
Lens is awesome, guys! The New York Times needs to do more awesome things like this (which organizes all their multimedia in one convenient bloglike site) and fewer lame things like this. Trust us. We know what we’re talking about.source
Good question. Maybe I’ll become a newspaper guy. I’ve been very fortunate. My kids are grown, college is done, weddings are done. I worry about my employees, though.
Chevy dealership owner Frank Videon • Who found out today that, after 53 years in the auto industry, GM was pulling the plug on his dealership. Regarding the newspaper thing: Haha, nice answer … jerk. (But we admit, we deserve it.) • source
It’s a payments system – once we have your details we will be able to charge you according to what you read, in particular, a high price for specialist material.
Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson • On his company’s eventual move to a micropayments system online. It’s a system that’s been heavily fought against by readers but makes sense for the WSJ, as they have a history of charging for their content. And since they have Rupert Murdoch as owner, they have a better reason to do it than most. • source
I implore newspapers not to put too much stock in these big screen Kindles. I know the options are awfully thin as to what can save you, and the Kindle is a potentially sexy savior; but it is not the answer.
MG Siegler • Techcrunch blogger, on the possibility of Amazon throwing a hail-mary pass to newspapers in the form of a wide-screen Kindle this week. It won’t work, he says, mainly because newspapers are a different kind of beast from books. He notes that it might cost a lot more and that the place a type of product like this could really help consumers is textbooks. We’re prone to agree. By the way, Hearst is working on something like this. By the way, super-smart newspaper consultant Steve Yelvington agrees. • source
