Posted on 11/09/2006 4:39:07 AM PST by abb
Deal or No Deal Print
Written by NIKKI FINKE
Broad, Burkle, Geffen... when it comes to the Times, whose briefcase is bigger? More and more, the newspaper on Spring Street is beginning to resemble Deal or No Deal. Forget all those ink-stained news males: bring on the female eye candy. Or better yet, the really rich guys. Hollywood mogul David Geffen is still an enthusiastic contestant to buy the Los Angeles Times; in fact, he’s so eager he’s already planning what he’ll do once he owns it (more on that below). Like any great game show, though, the stakes just got raised. On Wednesday two other Los Angeles billionaires, investor tycoon Eli Broad and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, have opened their briefcases. Only this time, fueled either by local pride or a lower-than-expected sale price, Broad and Burkle jointly submitted a bid to acquire the Times’ big-media, loser parent Tribune Co.
As if that weren’t enough excitement, this comes a day after rebellious L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet, who refused to cooperate on further staff cuts with new publisher and Tribune Co. bagman David Hiller, was ejected from the game altogether and replaced with Chicago Tribune managing editor James O’Shea, who starts Monday, November 13. Baquet’s ouster, following just weeks after former publisher Jeff Johnson fell on his sword over Chicago’s dictate to gut L.A., was always a question of if, not when. Even so, as if cued by Howie Mandel himself, the fallen editor’s announcement that he’d rather leave than cut more drew thunderous applause from the newsroom. So midway through this game, let’s look at who’s winning and who’s losing:
Loser: Los Angeles Times writers and reporters, who still had to cover the midterm elections and all the other local and national news from the still-undecided races in the midst of explosive and emotional internal announcements leaking out Tuesday.
Winner: Los Angeles Times readers, since one way or another, the odds are good they’ll get a hometown paper owned by locals. Geffen and Broad claim they’re committed to quality. Burkle just wants to keep his name out of the paper, so consider him Broad’s silent partner (but as a big-donor Democrat, he may have designs on the editorial and opinion sections). And O’Shea is just a short-timer since he’s 63 and only has a two-year contract to stay in Los Angeles. His wife of 33 years isn’t even moving west with him. I’m told O’Shea — a newspaperman’s newspaperman (isn’t every managing editor?) who has a background in foreign, national, business and investigative news — knows the lifeblood of any great paper is local coverage. (John Carroll and Dean Baquet sure didn’t.) He’ll carry out Hiller’s recent memo about more emphasis on local coverage to the letter. Here’s how I know: I’m told O’Shea gathered all the metro editors at the Trib last year and passionately told them that, “No matter what we do — covering the war in Iraq, the Middle East, anywhere — if we don’t own the local story of the investigations of City Hall, then we failed our readers as a newspaper. Let’s get organized and figure out how we’re going staff it and approach it and own it.” As for Carroll and Baquet, they showed that kind of passion only when blatantly shooting for (and often badly missing) Pulitzer Prizes.
Loser: Dean Baquet, a.k.a. Dean of Arc, who took his role as the rebel so seriously he began to transform into the news business’ Che Guevara. I’m told Hiller came out here gunning to fire him immediately and talked to O’Shea as long as a month ago about taking the job. But O’Shea spoke to both Hiller and Baquet (a longtime friend) in an attempt to get them to work together for at least a few weeks. It was impossible. Baquet was toast.
I know that Baquet had been seriously contemplating what he’d do if he left, voluntarily or involuntarily. After working in journalism for 19 years, he’d take a little time, smoke some cigars and finish reading a couple of books. But then he’d get right back in the saddle and find another newsroom job.
Winner: Also Baquet, because he goes out looking like a martyr. And who knows — maybe Broad or Burkle will bring him back. After all, as I reported previously, an investigative story about Burkle ended up being put on the back burner by Baquet in June after Burkle’s name surfaced as one of the paper’s billionaire suitors. Not to mention that after that speech he gave recently to a gathering of managing editors in his hometown of New Orleans, urging them to “put up more of a fight” against budget-slashing owners, he’ll be welcomed with open arms at The Washington Post or The New York Times. They love that shit. So don’t cry for Dean (like the poor saps in the L.A. Times newsroom who’ll soon be laid off did); he’ll be fine.
Loser: David Geffen, if Broad and Burkle outgame him by buying the entire parent company first, whereas Geffen only wanted the paper and not the other assets.
Winner: Also David Geffen, because no one outgames Geffen. Everyone in Hollywood knows that. Besides, look at the lengths he’s going to make the paper his. First, there are all those recent art sales he’s making. True, he’s timed it to the top of the art market, but the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s getting could be going into his war chest to buy the L.A. Times. Even if Burkle and Broad beat him to the first bid, Geffen is well positioned to get what he wants. Consider his friendship with Tribune investor John W. Rogers Jr., the Ariel Capital Management chairman and CEO, as well as with Rogers’ protégée and powerhouse Ariel president Mellody Hobson, who sits on the board of DreamWorks Animation. When Hobson visits Los Angeles, she sometimes stays at Geffen’s mansions. I’ve already reported how Geffen’s pursuit of the Tribune Co.’s troubled outpost not only hasn’t flagged, it has fired up, and not just because the paper’s 20 percent profit margin is so much better than the 6 percent earned by his bonds. Anyone familiar with Hollywood knows how relentless Geffen can be: What David wants, David gets.
Now I’m told Geffen is starting to plan what he intends to do to the paper once it’s his. Here’s what he’s saying to friends: He’ll pour money into more hires. He plans to staff – more like stuff – the paper with name writers and journalism stars. (Of course, he’ll raid The New York Times, where Frank Rich and his wife, Alex Witchel, are his good friends and occasional overnight guests. So are Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi. So are a lot of literati.) He’ll demand quality. He’ll ratchet up the Web site (even though he hates how prohibitively expensive it is to do that). He’ll figure out a way to bring in Latinos as readers.
Geffen hates how boring, badly written, inconsequential and pedestrian the L.A. Times’ editorial and opinion section is. He thinks nobody reads it. He knows nobody talks about it. Most of all, he wants his newspaper to be talked about. He’ll put the newsroom ahead of the ludicrous profit margins demanded by Wall Street and the Tribune Co. That’s not to say he wants to lose money, just that he thinks it’s a good investment already (though not if its stock price keeps dropping). What not to expect from Geffen is that he’ll devote every waking minute of his life to the venture. But, at 63, he’s looking for a new challenge. The movie biz, well, that hasn’t excited him for years. Dreamgirls is his last hurrah.
Geffen, Broad or Burkle... Deal or No Deal?
Get more Deadline Hollywood at www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/
Is Clinton in for a piece ?
.
"Is Clinton in for a piece ? "
Define: Is, In and piece:
LOL-LOL-LOL
Burkle married 19-year-old Janet Steeper, a descendent of the Wright brothers. Over the next decades, he would make his own foray into aviation, owning a Sikorsky helicopter and a Boeing 757 jet used so often by his friend and business partner Bill Clinton that the former President jokingly referred to it as "Air Force Two." Eventually the marriage to Ms. Steeper would fall apart, and, in doing so, become the center of a constitutional battle in California. The plane would appear in a blind item in the New York Post; in it, a "grocery billionaire" and "close Clinton pal" was known for flying models around on his private jet.
Great minds that think alike !
8-)
The only bad news about the newspaper stocks and other MSM stocks going down in value, that makes them easier to buy for the elite libs.
If they own and control the major fishwraps and local tv stations surrounding each fishwrap's geographical area, they will control the news like the facists in Germany, Italy and Spain did. They will control AP and might buy Reuters.
Then, they will get Pelosi and her thugs and to start the process of making their fishwraps, protected national treasures. Laws will enable them to lie and create imaginar sources and be protected. Laws will be enacted to destroy anyone/thing that opposes them. Of course the ACLU doesn't need any laws. They just make up their laws and sue.
We will see the ACLU start suing conservative talk show hosts and the companies who air them. After they get Clintoon or Obaabbaama as president in, they will make conservative blogs and sites like Free Republic the real endangers species.
ACLU law suits will end up in Congress and will financially ruin anyone who dares to oppose them or or the Rats in power.
The misery of losing is just beginning for us.
The Right is cutting its own throat.
A little humor aimed at liberals while we can still do it.
Soon the ACLU will be having War Criminal Trials for civilians like us who dared to expose the lib reality on the internet.
Dear God. You're exactly right.
The pseudo right who hated GW and enabled 2 terms of Clintoon and now the Pelosi regime has cut our throats.
Their George $oreA$$ financed bs of losing elections is wonderful has enabled the Rats to have power and to begin their process of destroying anyone who did the right thing for the last 6 years.
Terrorist pilot Mohammed Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him.
As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political prisoners".
However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands.
The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, "insisted" that all prisoners be released.
Thus Mohammed Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center.
This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified.
It was censored in the US from all later reports.
"Dear God. You're exactly right."
The legal warrior thugs of the DNC have started their destruction of Republicans across this country:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1735526/posts
ACLU Applauds Rumsfeld?s Resignation, Calls for Immediate Investigation Into Dereliction of Duty
Stop The ACLU ^ | 10-Nov-06 | John Stephenson
Posted on 11/09/2006 6:31:26 AM PST by Jay777
Off we go into a new direction for America. You know we are off on the wrong foot towards the wrong direction when the changes taking place are cheered by the ACLU! If President Bush thinks nixing Rumsfeld is a way to finding common ground with the newly empowered Democrats will be enough to satisfy the hunger of the left, he should think again. The ACLU, no doubt speaking the mind of the new majority, want to see his head on a fancier platter.
The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation from his post as Defense Secretary, and called on Congress to investigate the gross abuse of power committed under his watch.
"Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation is a step in the right direction," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "Rumsfeld is responsible for the torture and abuse of detainees in U. S. military custody and must be held accountable for the failures that occurred on his watch. He has placed the blame on junior military members and has been nothing but derelict in his duty. Congress must initiate an immediate and exhaustive investigation into his six-year-long record of unlawful activity, violations of the rule of law and complicity in the executive branch abuse."
Rummy is just the first of any big name, who did the right thing in the WOT and standing against the left wing who want a weak America, a weak Military and an over taxed controlled population.
The ACLU will be their legal spear carriers, the Burkel owned MSM's will set the stage, and Pelosi and Clintoon will host these upcoming war trials in the house and senate.
Thanks for posting this terrible reality of what can happen when the leftwingers control our country with elected officials and their vile MSM.
"Terrorist pilot Mohammed Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him.
As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political prisoners".
However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands.
The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, "insisted" that all prisoners be released.
Thus Mohammed Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center.
This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified.
It was censored in the US from all later reports."
If Bill Clinton had been a virgin, he would still have been the most immoral president in this country's history.
In exchange for illegal campaign contributions from the government of China, he allowed the Chinese to buy American technology, which now makes them capable of hitting American cities with nuclear missiles.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell121602.asp
And so it begins......
The enemy within is going full throttle. Count on it.
The world became a much more dangerous place Tuesday. However, America has survived crooks, loons and ne'er do wells in the past. In spite of its best efforts the Party of Treason has not managed to detroy the Union.
While there is plenty with which to blame the GOP the fact remains that the voter is about as gullible has one can get. Many believe the RAT running as a conservative can be trusted.
I knew this result was likely after the uproar and riotous anti-GOP hatred because of Illegals. Rather than attack the party which encourages and excuses and prevents action on the problem the Mob goes after the GOP.
"I knew this result was likely after the uproar and riotous anti-GOP hatred because of Illegals. Rather than attack the party which encourages and excuses and prevents action on the problem the Mob goes after the GOP."
George $oreA$$ knows how to fund the enemies of America, even the ones who pretend to be the greatest walking on water Reagan conservatives.
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