Who's Dancing Now. Revisited

Last December we discussed the ongoing plight of one of our local newspapers the Chicago Tribune. In that piece we discussed how Sam Zell, who over the years had earned the moniker "The Grave Dancer" for buying distressed assets in real estate and turning them around, had fared quite poorly as a newspaper owner. You can read that original story here: http://lumencapital.blogspot.com/2008/12/whose-dancing-now.html.

I thought I revisit this story given that its the Halloween season. I'd like to say that I have hands on experience by reading up on the company/newspaper in the Chicago Tribune but we at Lumen Capital cancelled our subscription this year. The primary reason for doing so was that in his quest to cut costs Mr. Zell has all but emasculated the paper. While the paper has done a pretty good job of covering local corruption particularly with our former Governor Rod Blagovich, it has also unfortunately mostly gone out of reporting and analyzing news in every other department. The sports section is a joke-big pictures instead of in-depth coverage and local stories in the suburbs are almost non-existent anymore.

The second reason we've cut the paper is that one can read all of the Tribune's content on-line for free. There is even a fee I-phone application to help you do so if you are on the go. Now we here have never understood the newspaper model that gives away its product for nothing. I think it is a big reason that circulation continues to decline all over the country. However, I am also willing to take for free what is given to me on the Internet which the Tribune certainly does every day.

The Tribune is still in bankruptcy as is our other local paper the Chicago Sun-Times. The Tribune has sold the Cubs & their baseball park, Wrigley Field now in an effort to come up with a package that can possibly put it back on solid financial ground. But the paper may have never been in this mess had Zell not put together his debt laden package back in 2007. In regards to the "Trib" we @ Solas think the Grave Dancer has one foot already in the grave!