Responding to the charge that he helped destroy free-form radio across America, Abrams responded, “They had the chance to go mainstream. They didn’t.”

Another juicy nugget:

“If you want to reach a lot of people, there’s only a limited amount of songs they like. You can’t just go nuts and play everything.”

Can’t embed, but listen here. An interesting study in the concerted devolution of American culture.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The 60′s were obviously a very important time for Abrams.

Of course, there’s nothing innovative about bad ideas, incompetence, and sexual harassment. But watching Abrams insist otherwise is kind of entertaining.

See the full interview here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I believe it is important to state the facts as they apply to my recent and abrupt departure from Tribune Company.  My apology for sending the Onion News Network parody clip stands.  Though, as Tribune is a multi-media company competing at the most dramatic cross-roads in media history, I would have hoped that the use of a brilliant parody to demonstrate the ills of popular TV would have been an effective communication vehicle and that people would have taken it as it was intended; a parody that illustrates what not to do.  I suspect that a major component of this debacle is being motivated by a power play to seize creative, cultural and business control of the company as it emerges from Chapter 11.  Or maybe the idea of a “rock and roll” type from broadcasting invading tradition is so offensive to the fourth estate that my mere presence posed a threat to their grip on the past.  I do not know that any of these hypotheses are fact and probably never will.

It’s the best of both worlds. Abrams no longer has any say over the direction of the LA Times, but we still get to hear him rant.

Email in full after the jump:

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This is all according to inside sources who spoke to the media outlets on condition of anonymity. We are praying that they are reliable sources who are right about everything.

What seems to have motivated the board to consider ousting Michaels was not the prolonged downward spiral of the media properties under his management, but the embarrassing report by the NY Times detailing his inappropriate, sexist behavior, and the resignation of fellow exec Lee Abrams over an embarrassingly sexually explicit memo. From the Chicago Times:

Board members, sources say, began to worry about possible liability issues related to their fiduciary duties and started exploring Michaels’ fitness to run the company.

In other words, they woke up. Now when are they gonna get rid of the guy?

Previously on FBLA:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ding dong, the witch is dead. Two days after Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams was suspended without pay for sending out a risque email to the entire Tribune staff, Abrams has resigned.

It may have taken sexually explicit material to get rid of him, but staffers have long been offended by Abrams’ weekly email rants, his terrible ideas, and his general lack of respect for journalism. From the LA Times:

Championing change at Tribune newspapers and broadcast outlets, Abrams repeatedly accused TV news of clinging to a late-20th century look, sound and feel. He wondered aloud whether readers knew that a newspaper dateline meant the reporter was actually writing from the location where the story occurred.

Abrams also advocated new and different styles of storytelling and conveying information. In Houston, where the Tribune TV station has virtually no viewers to lose, he was developing an anchorless newscast.

It’s not known what will happen to Abrams’ Tribune projects and initiatives with his departure.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The video itself is a clever commentary on the degrading characterization of women in reality TV show programming. What it isn’t is Safe For Work, what with all the half naked women and sexist language. Enjoy on your lunch break.

VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes In California Causing Major Slut Spill

Previously on FBLA:
Tribune Exec Suspended For Sluts & Boobs Email

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Abrams has been suspended without pay. Maybe that will free up some money in the budget to finance real reporting.

Memo from Tribune CEO Randy Michaels about Abrams suspension after the jump-

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Our thanks to Ana Marie Cox for linking to this on her Twitter feed with the note:

I disagree with one of the names on this list (“people who should be unemployed”) but gonna let you guess which.

And make sure not to miss the special mention for “Never Ever Get Fired Award”:

Tribune Company Innovation Chief Lee Abrams He is an insane person and every dollar spent on him is a dollar wasted, by a bankrupt company, but he is a treat, and we would miss his memos.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

CJR is running a massive feature piece by Robert Love on the Chief Innovation Officer of the Tribune Company Lee Abrams:

Based on these stream-of-consciousness blog entries-turned-e-mails, Abrams has been dismissed by his new colleagues as a “lunatic,” a “barbarian,” a buffoon whose writing style is Ted Kaczynski-meets-Dan Quayle.

Snort.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Tribune Co. Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams spoke at Society for News Design‘s annual workshop in Las Vegas this weekend, urging listeners in his standard glass-is-half-full-of-unicorns way that newspapers aren’t dead.

“I just try to inspire people to rethink things, to take nothing for granted,” Abrams said. “There’s no reason we can’t create a newspaper renaissance. Papers are everywhere — it’s not like it’s a new startup business. We have to focus on rethinking. Think dramatic. Think urgency. Dramatic issues require dramatic solutions.”

Drama? Renaissance? Why do we have the sinking feeling Abrams going to rent Times Mirror Square out for the Ren Fair?

– Via Romensko

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

There’s a reason our company is getting so much dramatic coverage in the blogosphere and in print. There are some dramatic issues facing Media companies, and we’re meeting the issues with dramatic solutions. Thus, the drama.

Know what amazes us? This guy is in charge of major changes in presentation of the written word, but if he were to apply for a writing job, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Dude, if reviewers could see the future, they would have known better than to work at newspapers to begin with.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Don’t think of them as layoffs, kids. Think of them as an opportunity to spend more time communing with Lee Abrams‘ world of sound.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

But we’re having a hard time laughing at the latest lunatic musings from Tribune Co. Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams:

Then there’s possibly a painful reality that maybe TV stations don’t want to associate with what they may think is a tired declining brand. They’d rather be in bed with Google. I’ll be real honest here — at XM, we were approached by many newspaper brands for news channels, but the thinking was that we’d be better off with a more contemporary brand to associate with. (We DID have a short lived USA Today Channel). Our thinking back then was that newspapers had the content, but generally had a dated image.The solution: Well, that’s why I am SO obsessed with rethinking and redesigning newspapers. Not only to increase circulation and grow again … but to turn around the tired image into a very modern and vibrant one. A VERY healthy and alive local paper can drive the news on SO many platforms. Invincible. A modern newspaper brand on a modern TV station — Huge. That healthy and vibrant paper will drive EVERYthing.

Abrams wants to capitalize on the content of newspapers by turning them into content producers for TV and radio? Well, that certainly is innovative.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Someone asked me why I was moving to Tribune and continued with the comment that newspapers were the print version of the passenger train. I thought that News and Information has a lot in common with the transportation industry. Maybe newspapers ARE the modern day equivalent of the passenger train. Looked at by those old enough to remember, with great nostalgia. A tribute to a slower and saner era. Fair enough. But the New York Central Railroad would still be in the passenger business if, many decades ago, it evolved into delivering short, low cost, fast corridor travel instead of hoping there are enough people scared of flying to compete with jets. My point is simply flexing with the times. Just because railroad passenger departments blew it doesn’t mean newspapers will.

Further on the transportation analogy, there’s the Internet. That’s space travel. No limits. Not yet even a microcosm of its potential. And TV — that’s the airlines. Very competitive and the standard. So, in general terms — newspapers need to re-invent themselves, Internet needs to build and fly the enterprise and TV needs to re-think itself in light of the competitive options on your set. Looks good on paper, but executing? It’s complex and intensive, but it ain’t rocket science. It can be done. Better yet — it HAS to be done.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.