Mo’guls, Mo’ Problems

Don Bauder at the San Diego Reader thinks it’s a definite possibility. We’ve heard the rumors too, but haven’t gotten anything solid one way or the other.

Since taking over the San Diego Union-Tribune at the end of last year (and re-naming it U-T San Diego) Manchester has been rumored to be eying the North County Times as well. But UT editor Jeff Light is an OC Register alumn, and has brought plenty of folks with him from the OC to San Diego. The Register has been rumored to be on the block since its parent company Freedom Communications went bankrupt in 2009. Freedom recently settled a major lawsuit with several of its unsecured Register creditors stemming from that bankruptcy, which certainly must make the paper a whole lot more appealing to potential buyers.

More to come on this story, we’re sure.

*Voice of San Diego confirms that Manchester is definitely interested in the Register. “There’s no deal right now,” Manchester told VoSD. “Check with me in 30 days and there might be something.”

Even for an article in the real estate section of the New York Times, the subject of Sam Zell‘s spectacular mismanagement of the Tribune Co. is unavoidable. And the diminutive mogul is happy to flap his gums on the topic, denying any responsibility for the largest media bankruptcy in American history:

Zell does not blame the heavy debt burden for Tribune’s failure, but rather the precipitous dive in newspaper advertising that occurred just after he bought the media company and the staff’s intransigence. “I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to convince the people that it was in their own interest to modify the way in which the business ran, so as to be profitable,” he said.

That’s the same decline in advertising that affected every single newspaper in this country, the vast majority of which didn’t go bankrupt. That was the problem? That and the uppity staff? Yeesh.

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U-T San Diego has decided to seek outside help in monitoring its comment sections. It will outsource responsibility for its comment boards to a moderation service.

San Diego CityBeat got a hold of the memo:

Comment moderation: We have hired an outside company to monitor our comments 24/7, hiding comments that do not meet our standards. Reporters will be getting emails from the moderators at ICUC Moderation services alerting them to comments that may warrant their attention. You don’t have to respond to these moderators, but thanking them or letting them know of any action you take will help them get used to how we operate and welcome them to the family. This is a major step we expect will further refine the tone and content of the comments without hindering their flow. This does not replace the need for reporters to read the comments and, when called for, to interact with the commenters on their stories.

As CityBeat notes, the U-T isn’t the first media outlet to outsource its comment moderation. The San Francisco Chronicle and NPR also use ICUC. The U-T has had some high profile disasters in its comment section since Douglas Manchester took control of the paper late last year. So farming out the moderating duties is probably a good idea until it gets the rest of the paper in order.

San Diego-based KPBS television and radio producer Megan Burke is tweeting up a storm about a proposed plan by San Diego Union-Tribune (we’re still not ready for U-T San Diego) CEO John Lynch to launch a new television network under the paper’s banner. The new network will apparently air on cable TV as well as the paper’s website and will be called UT-TV.

Memo to Lynch: There’s nothing more demeaning to a real journalist than being called a “content provider/contributor.” More to come on this story we’re sure.

Interesting little tidbit from an LA Times piece on Karl Rove‘s “American Crossroads” super PAC–which has brought in $18.4 million from wealthy oligarchs in the past year. Guess who’s name turned up on the 2011 donor roster?

The end of the year tally  included $100,000 from Sam Zell, whose properties include the Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, among other papers.

It gets better. Guess what Zell’s money is helping to buy? Videos like this one, attacking President Obama’s track record on jobs and unemployment. Isn’t that just the cow’s knockers? Incompetent billionaire bankrupts a company, lays off thousands, and then has the sack to spent a reporter’s salary or two funding political attack ads accusing Obama of devastating the middle class.

Watch Zell’s video after the jump if you feel like retching.

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The Tribune Company, (abusive) parent company of the LA Times, has spent $212.9 million on lawyers fees and another $17.8 million on additional legal expenses since they filed for bankruptcy in December of 2008, according to a report in Crain’s.

And the river of wasted money isn’t drying up anytime soon. U.S. bankruptcy judge Kevin Carey recently said he wouldn’t hold hearings to end Tribune Co’s bankruptcy until May, at the earliest. Which, sadly, will most likely mean more layoffs, despite the company’s supposedly improving cash flow.

San Diego Union-Tribune… nee… make that “U-T San Diego” owner and real estate magnate Douglas Manchester ran not one, but TWO editorials in his new toy… er… paper today, shilling for his waterfront development plans. And one of them ran on the friggin’ front page!

San Diego is not pleased. Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis called the plans “half baked.”

The paper provided no new insight on deep, decades-old disagreements. It merely posits that problems can be solved because problems can be solved. It worries about a skeptical public unwilling to invest in big ideas because it has been misled so much and then immediately misleads on how expensive this big idea would be.

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Digitally-oriented media mogul John Paton got a nice fat profile in the LA Times over the weekend, courtesy of James Rainey. Paton is the CEO of Digital First Media, the Journal Register Company and Media News–and oversees the Daily News, Pasadena Star-News, Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Daily Breeze, among a few hundred other papers and media outlets across the country. Paton is a one-time copy boy for the Toronto Sun, who has made it big as a media executive by pushing his newspapers to embrace digital journalism–and pushing hard.

Writes Rainey:

Paton and his Digital First Media — a management company established four months ago that now oversees the recently bankrupt Journal Register and MediaNews chains — have put a 21st century spin on “Stop the presses!” Reporters post video before writing news stories, tweet to their readers in search of news tips and invite customers into news meetings to help mull story choices.

Ad reps had better be pushing Facebook placements, email blasts and online video ads. Paton’s mantra: “Stack digital dimes to match print dollars.”

The roundish chief executive with the insouciant Sydney Greenstreet affect displays a notable lack of sentimentality for parts of his lifelong trade. He has said that traditional print journalism has a value of “about zero,” urged that newspaper people stop listening to other newspaper people, and stated that the public “knows more than we do” about their towns.

Paton later qualifies those statements by arguing that newspapers are no longer fit for breaking news, when stories can be posted on the web at a moment’s notice. Which is true. But he never disputes the notion that John Q. Public somehow knows more about their town than reporters do. We’d encourage Paton to take a stroll around LA and ask people on the street if they can name all the city council members. Or even their own city council member.

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Is there anyone left on the planet who doesn’t have their eyes on the Dodgers? Mark Cuban tried, but the price was too high. Magic Johnson, Joe Torre, Rick Caruso and Roy Disney are all still in the running. Now Rupert Murdoch and News Corp want a piece. Next thing you know Jimma Hoffa is going to resurface and want in on the action.

News Corps’ interest, however, isn’t to buy the whole team, reports the Wall Street Journal. They just want enough of the pie to help their Fox division maintain its media stake in the team.

Fox is looking to become a minority investor to improve its chances of keeping the team’s television rights. The people say the company is interested in a 15-20% stake and is also offering to use its resources to help finance an acquisition of the team.
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The film studios have so little interest in all-black films that even Hollywood royalty like George Lucas struggled to find a distributor for his latest work, Red Tails. Lucas didn’t mince any words when explaining to Daily Show host Jon Stewart the source of the problem:

It’s because it’s an all-black movie. There’s no major white roles in it at all. It’s one of the first all-black action pictures ever made.

Lucas spent 23 years making the film, which is based on the true story of a crew of African American pilots who fought in World War II and helped start the civil rights movement. “I financed it myself. I figured I could get the prints and ads paid for by the studios and that they would release it,” he explained to Stewart. “And I showed it to all of them, and they said, ‘Noooo. We don’t know how to market a movie like this.’ It’s not green enough.” And by green, Lucas means profitable.

These are the same yahoos who brought us Mars Need Moms, a film that lost over $100 million. A whackadoodle story about motherless space aliens strikes these dunderheads as a better investment than a classic tale about real American heroes. Because they happen to be black.

Get it together, Hollywood.

View the full Lucas/Stewart interview after the jump.

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