End Times

Just in case you needed a reminder, Randy Michaels, Sam Zell's hand-picked guy to lead the Tribune, is pretty much just as big a douche as he seems. David Carr reports:

The company is now frozen in what seems to be an endless effort to emerge from bankruptcy. (The case entered mediation in September after negotiations failed, and a new agreement between two primary lenders was recently announced.) But even as the company foundered, the tight circle of executives, many with longtime ties to Mr. Michaels, received tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.

Tribune's board responded by saying Michaels has its full confidence. Then again, this is the Tribune Co. that defines "innovation" as putting a company into massive debt and using the employee's own stock plan to do it. Oh, and taxpayers helped out, too:

Mr. Zell's first innovation was the deal itself. He used debt in combination with an employee stock ownership plan, called an ESOP, to buy the company, while contributing only $315 million of his own money. Under the plan, the company's discretionary matching contributions to the 401(k) retirement plan for nonunionized Tribune employees were diverted into an ownership stake. The structure of the deal allowed the Tribune to become an S corporation, which pays no federal taxes, making taxpayers essentially silent partners in the deal.

As bad as things have been for the industry, Carr shows that Zell and Michaels have managed to make it all worse for the Tribune and the LA Times. It's really painful to watch. I used to buy the Sunday edition of the Times even when I didn't live here. Now it's like a shambling, necrotic version of its former self: a zombie newspaper.