The deal from hell : how moguls and Wall Street plundered great American newspapers

In 2000, after the Tribune Company acquired Times Mirror Corporation, it comprised the most powerful collection of newspapers in the world. How then did Tribune nosedive into bankruptcy and public scandal? In "The Deal From Hell," veteran "Tribune" and "Los Angeles Times" editor James O'Shea takes us behind the scenes of the decisions that led to disaster in boardrooms and newsrooms from coast to coast, based on access to key players, court testimony, and sworn depositions."The Deal From Hell" is a riveting narrative that chronicles how news industry executives and editors--convinced they were acting in the best interests of their publications--made a series of flawed decisions that endangered journalistic credibility and drove the newspapers, already confronting a perfect storm of political, technological, economic, and social turmoil, to the brink of extinction. No one has ever told the story of the biggest merger in the history of American journalism and its long-lasting implications. Embedded in the failure of the marriage of the Tribune Company with the Times Mirror Company is a far broader story of monumental egos, fallible souls, larger-than-life characters, and cultural clashes about the collapse of newspapers—the institutions that write the first, crucial draft of history and the only industry America’s forefathers considered important enough to single out in the U.S. Constitution. The conventional wisdom is that newspapers—and by that I mean the credible, edited information they deliver, and not just the paper and ink—fell into a death spiral because of forces unleashed by declining circulations and the migration of readers to the Internet. But the Internet and declining circulations didn’t kill newspapers, any more than long stories or skimpy attention spans did. What is killing a system that brings reliably edited news and information to readers’ doorsteps every morning for less than the cost of a cup of coffee is the way that the people who run the industry have reacted to those forces. The lack of investment, the greed, incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy, and downright arrogance of people who put their interests ahead of the public’s are responsible for the state of the newspaper industry today. I saw it, both as a longtime reporter and as an editor at the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Journalists,Los Angeles Times,Newspaper Publishing,American Newspapers,Newspaper Editors - United States,21st Century,American Newspapers - Ownership,United States,O'Shea; James,Press Monopolies - United States,California,Newspaper Editors,Los Angeles,Biography & Autobiography,Press Monopolies,History,Journalists - United States,Editors; Journalists; Publishers,Biography,Newspaper Publishing - California - Los Angeles - History - 21st Century Presents A Behind-the-scenes Look At How The Tribune Company Went From Having The Most Powerful Collection Of Newspapers In The World In 2000 To Bankruptcy And Public Scandal After Executives And Editors Made A Series Of Flawed Decisions. Introduction : The Merger -- Beginnings : Des Moines -- Across The Street -- Otis Chandler's Legacy -- Twilight -- The New Order -- The Cereal Killer -- His Seat On The Dais -- Inside The Merger -- Making News -- A Changing Landscape -- Market-driven Journalism -- Buy The Numbers -- Count Kern -- Civil War -- Up Against A Saint And A Dead Man -- Before The Fall -- The Penguin Parable -- Closing The Deal -- Zell Hell. James O'shea. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The authoritative account of a catastrophic merger of media empires that symbolizes the crisis in American journalism and the challenges faced by the nation's newspapers in the digital age.