As he headed out the door for Los Angeles to take over as editor of the LA Times after a stint as managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, Jim O’Shea complained to the Wall Street Journal about how the “whole damn [newspaper] industry is focusing on the wrong thing. We’re all worried about how many [...]

In an article posted recently on this Web site, I suggested that the press do a better job reporting on profits, the oil industry and the news business being my cases in point. Only after the posting did I become aware of an outstanding — and unusual — article on profits done months ago by [...]

Dean Baquet’s departure from the Los Angeles Times is sad and worrisome — and all the more so because we’re likely to misdirect the passion it stirs in us. We’ll conclude, quite logically, that the Tribune Co., the paper’s corporate owner, is the villain in Baquet’s story, as it was in the John Carroll story [...]

It didn’t take long for the conventional wise guys of the media to jump on Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) for speaking the truth, however awkwardly. But the media types didn’t bother looking where they were jumping. Kerry, addressing a crowd of students, told them something they very well understand: “Education, if you make the most [...]

When Jay Harris quit in 2001 as publisher of the San Jose Mercury News rather than make cuts he believed would harm the paper, he was invited to speak to the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, where he received an enthusiastic standing ovation. When the LA Times publisher and editor recently [...]

Tribune Company CEO Dennis FitzSimons announced recently that a deal had been struck with Chandler family interests that frees the company to pursue alternatives “to further enhance shareholder value.” Additionally, FitzSimons said an independent committee had been created to oversee other steps, perhaps sale of papers and/or TV stations, or taking the company private, to [...]