CHICAGO, IL (June 9, 2008) – The journalism and business worlds will be watching for what happens, and just how soon, after The Tribune Co. last week announced sharp cutbacks for their 12 newspapers that includes dropping both journalists and page counts.
During a conference call with Wall Street analysts Tribune chairman and CEO Sam Zell and the company's chief operating officer, Randy Michaels, said the newspapers will go to a 50-50 split between advertising and news content across all news pages, doing away with up to 500 pages per week from all 12 papers, leaving the smallest Tribune-owned paper with a 56 page issue once a week.
Zell told Wall Street they can do this without a large number of news employees, and the end result is that they won't lose much content.
"This is going to happen quickly," Michaels said.
"I promise you he's [Michaels] underestimating the level of aggressiveness with which we are attacking this whole challenge," Zell said in The New York Times.
Tribune has been downsizing through a string of multiple management leaders but since going private in an $8.2 billion deal last December led by Zell there have been more cuts. During Thursday's call Zell warned Tribune employees to expect even bigger cuts in the near future.
Tribune has been doing byline counts and comparing reporters' output with the number of news pages produced. Michaels told Wall Street that a "fair number" of people can be eliminated without losing much content in print. Michaels said the Los Angeles Times produces 51 pages of news for each journalist while Tribune papers like The Baltimore Sun or The Hartford Courant produce 300 news pages per journalist.
After the Wall Street conference call, Hartford Courant executive editor Clifford Teutsch sent out a memo to Courant news staff in response to questions Courant reporters asked about Zell and Michaels' statements.
"I can give you some answers now and more in coming days," Teutsch wrote. "We are going to have to make significant newshole and staff reductions ... We will be asking for your help in re-inventing the paper," Teutsch said.
The Tribune Co. is also trying to sell The Chicago Cubs baseball team and Wrigley Field and it reportedly has $12.8 billion in debt. Zell says they are waiting for Major League Baseball to approve the Tribune's accounting of the team and its assets, and once approved by MLB they expect to start taking offers on the team and stadium from private buyers in the coming weeks.
