Empathetic Journalism: LA Times’ Parent Company Files for Bankruptcy
by Jim Washburn
I recently did a piece here on the sorry state of the Los Angeles Times in which one longtime staffer opined the seemingly impossible: that two years from now there might not be a Times any longer. Well, the business section of today’s (Dec. 8) Times carries the headline, “Debt-laden Tribune explores bankruptcy.” Nice choice of words, that, sort of like saying you’re “exploring” amputation for a gangrenous goat-cheese of a leg. The news is that Tribune Co., which owns the LA Times, has hired attorneys and advisors to help decide how best to roll its highly-leveraged self into the grave. Not to say that bankruptcy can’t buy time to save a company, just that, unless the Obama years include manna from heaven, the Trib is going to have a hard time surviving.
Look at this: In the deal Sam Zell structured for the Tribune Co., the company became saddled with some $12 billion in debt (some sources say $13 billion, but who’s counting?), of which a $512 million bill becomes ripe next June. Meanwhile, today the company is due to repay $70 million of old unsecured debt lingering from before it sold last year. Even though the Zell deal was structured in unoptimistic times, things have grown so much worse over the last year that Tribune Co. has little hope of living up to its obligations. Like most newspapers, the Times is desperate for advertiser dollars, at the same time slashing budgets, staff and pages, which gives advertisers and readers less reason everyday to turn to the paper.
The Monday Business section in which this story was reported, for example, was a thin four-pages, with less than ¼ of one page of ads (most of that hawking private first class suites on Emirates Air flights to the Middle East: finally, there’s a way to masturbate in private while flying).
As much as journalists love raiding everyone else’s hampers, newspapers are always reluctant to air their own dirty laundry, and the Times might not have even reported on its parent company’s woes had not the Washington Post scooped them on it the day previous. At that point you look silly if you don’t report on it, since it’s news and you should have the inside track on it, since it’s about you. Don’t count on it. As the Post had, the Times reporter had to resort to quoting “unnamed” current and former Tribune executives, since the newspaper of record is apparently unwilling to go on the record.
And—this just in—it’s being reported now that Tribune Co. has indeed rushed into filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. There are worse chapters, but it’s not a book anyone wants to be in.
Maybe this was planned all along, to coincide with the $70 million bill that’s due today. Maybe the report that the Trib was considering bankruptcy forced their hand, before the creditors smelled the blood in the water.
Should newspapers seek a federal bailout? Why not, everyone else is? And the press is the only business considered so crucial to a functioning democracy that our founding fathers granted it protections in the Bill of Rights. And from our selfish perspective, housing and transportation issues tend to get short shrift in the media anyway. Without a functioning, competitive press, those issues will get even less attention, just at the time when housing and transportation matters are becoming more vital to us all.
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