Clash of Cultures Exacerbates Woes for Tribune Co. (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch?)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 10, 2006 | Sarah Ellison

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Earlier this summer, Dennis FitzSimons, chief executive of Tribune Co., traveled here to meet a group of Los Angeles Times editors and reporters. Mr. FitzSimons was running late and, according to two people in attendance, the assembled group joked about saving all the hard questions for the top executive of their parent company.

When Mr. FitzSimons finally arrived, a reporter asked: "Why do you hate the L.A. Times?"

When Chicago-based Tribune Co. acquired Times Mirror six years ago, it was more than an $8 billion fusion of two media companies. The merger also threw together two competing and incompatible cultures, each rooted in the traditions of their respective flagship newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

Some Tribune executives think the Times is arrogant, spoiled and overstaffed, a paper with global ambitions that has ignored local readers. Some Times people consider the Chicago Tribune an inferior, provincial product. Times denizens, proud of their city's position as the nation's second largest, see the paper's owners as bean counters in business suits. Tribune thinks its Californian charges are too slick and prefer to take pride in the company's Chicago roots.

Unlike many battles between journalists and corporate bosses, which focus largely on spending, this one is also driven by fundamental differences between the philosophies of the two newspapers.

"It's a tragic, bad marriage," L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet has told colleagues. Mr. Baquet's own tenure was cut short amid the infighting and his last day is today.

Across the country, once-profitable newspapers are being ravaged by the Internet in a historic industry shift. The traditionally high margins of newspaper publishers have been squeezed as both readers and advertisers abandon the medium. Investor confidence has plummeted over the industry's uncertain growth prospects.

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"It's a tragic, bad marriage," L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet has told colleagues.