Tribune Co is keeping media reporters and headline writers busy these days with news of how the company is trying to turn around its newspaper business and stay afloat under billions of dollars in debt - all while creating a culture that, as Chicago real estate tycoon and newly minted press baron Sam Zell says, does not take itself too seriously.

That is growing more difficult as the company embarks on another round of job cuts at its papers, sparking fear and loathing among employees, and launches an ambitious plan to redo the papers’ sizes and looks. Tribune also set journalism types’ tongues a-wagging with its plan to review reporter productivity as a possible condition for staying on board. That might not sound so controversial, except that many people have interpreted that as saying it’s not about the quality of your stories, it’s about the quantity.

Gerould Kern, Tribune’s vice president of editorial and the successor to departing Chicago Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski, addressed some of these topics in a phone interview with Reuters.

Q: What is your immediate task as the new editor of the Chicago Tribune?

A: As we report almost daily, the newspaper business is in a crisis. And I want to do everything I can in my power to save it. And you know, the Chicago Tribune has played a huge role in the history of the nation and the city, and I know it and I’m proud of it and I want that history to stretch far into the future. So I’m optimistic that we can solve these economic problems, the economic dislocation that faces us and that we’re not only going to survive but thrive in the future.

Q: How do you make the business thrive with fewer people?

A: I think it becomes a lot harder and that’s going to force us to be a lot more innovative and entrepreneurial and resourceful than we’ve ever been before. There’s been a lot of misinformation and confusion about productivity as a topic. I think the idea’s fairly simple. Let’s turn over every stone, let’s do every smart thing we can to stretch the resources, to use them to serve people and build our audiences and bring in revenue to support journalism.

It means our full-time professional staff is going to get smaller. And that’s been happening to newspapers all over the country. And yet we’re having to support more local media channels than ever before. … At the end of the day we still will have the largest newsgathering organization in this city by far. And if we are really smart and resourceful about using them we will be able to a fabulous job for consumers in whatever channel they choose.

Q: What do you say to the reporters who say they’re scandalized by the idea of being judged on how many stories they produce, rather than the quality of individual stories?

A: I think it is unfortunate that this has been focused on in this way. I understand it based on some comments that [Tribune Chief Operating Officer] Randy [Michaels] made on the middle of that call. Let me just say this: I talked in a broader sense about productivity, which frankly is the way I’m looking at it. What can the whole organization do that’s smart, that‘s strategic, that’s resourceful.

But on bylines: All of our newspapers are looking at all kinds of information to see what is valuable in making some of these tough choices… Some of our newspapers in some departments have been doing byline counts over the years. It’s not the first time that anybody’s ever done that. From the beginning, we made it clear that this should be viewed as just one data point and, frankly, probably not the most valuable and that it had to be combined with other information. … Everybody knows for instance that you have to evaluate investigative reporters differently than other kinds of reporters. Because reporting takes a long time… And everyone was aware of that.

In the end, the information and the judgment calls [were] left strictly up to editors in the newsroom and that’s where it will remain. So, I think much more is being made of it than really is there.

So Tribune Co is cutting jobs at The Sun in Baltimore and Hartford Courant.

Not to sound callous, but by this point should anyone be surprised by news that a publisher is getting rid of jobs? After all, this is shaping up to be one of the worst years in memory for the newspaper business.

The upshot: The Sun will lose 100 jobs, 60 of them in the newsroom, and the Courant will cut about 60 jobs. (Don’t forget, Tribune is also cutting jobs at the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune)

But it’s not just Tribune. It seems everyone is cutting jobs as advertising revenue plunges thanks to the one-two combination of a weak economy and competition from the Internet for marketing dollars.

Here’s what the union had to say about Tribune’s cuts:

“Baltimore Sun employees are being punished for Tribune’s mismanagement,” Cet Parks, chief negotiator for the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, said in a statement. “Tribune’s answer to solving declining circulation and readership is to slash employees from the payroll and cut the news hole, salaries and benefits.”

Perhaps that is their answer — but is there a better one out there? So far, nobody seems to have found one.

Keep an eye on:

• WPP Group chief Sir Martin Sorrell is warning that Google is trying to do an end-run around ad agencies. But French rival Publicis is keen to partner with the search giant - and just about anyone else in the online realm (NY Post)
• Video games are known to improve hand-eye coordination but can they help someone quit smoking or lose weight? (Reuters)
• NBC has settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who killed himself when confronted with cameras for the documentary series “To Catch a Predator” (NY Times)
• It costs less to run run ads during “The Office” on Hulu than NBC.com. But keep in mind you can’t buy individual shows on Hulu, just demographics across a number of shows (Silicon Alley Insider)

(Reuters photo of Tribune Tower)

Surprise, surprise! Online advertising spending appears to have slipped quarter-to-quarter, the first time that’s happened in three years, according to a new report.

Before pulling your hair out, keep in mind that first quarter online advertising spending rose 18 percent from the year ago period – it’s just that it slipped from the fourth quarter,  according to the IAB. So while still robust, it seems that online advertising isn’t impervious to the economic troubles gripping the United States.

Another report, this one by PricewaterhouseCoopers, takes a longer view of advertising in new media. It finds that advertising tied to digital and mobile media will account for 24 percent of the growth in the media and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 19.5 percent to 2012.

There are a lot of different numbers to sort through, and they address different things, but the upshot seems to be this: Digital media may suffer a bit during the downturn, but smart money still has it booming over the coming years and leading the way for growth in media.

Keep an eye on:  

• Sam Zell’s Tribune could face default by year’s end, even with attempts to sell assets and debt to shore up its debt, says a Standard & Poor’s analyst (Bloomberg) 
• DreamWorks SKG and India’s Reliance ADA Group are near a deal to create a new movie venture, which would provide director Steven Spielberg with the cash to finance his DreamWorks team’s departure from Paramount Pictures (WSJ.com) 
• Business community site LinkedIn has pulled in a $53 million infusion from venture capitalists, valuing the company at $1 billion (Reuters)
• A new study finds that advertisements in traditional media are ”much more likely” to make a  positive impression with consumers than those appearing in digital media (NY Times/TV Decoder)
• Microsoft has bought Navic Systems, a company that helps advertisers place spots on TV programs, for an undisclosed amount (paidContent.org)

What would a combined InBev/Anheuser-Busch do with advertising? It’s one of the questions already being tossed around in the wake of InBev’s $46 billion bid for the brewer of Bud and Bud Light.

One obvious problem for Anheuser-Busch, which spends about $475 million each year on advertising, is that their marketing focuses heavily on the idea of being an All-American beer and company.

That may not play so well when you’re owned by a company based in Belgium, we reported.

As Ted Parrack, chief strategic officer of Colangelo, a Connecticut-based marketing agency, told us: “How do Americans think about beer? Guys make beer. Corporations don’t make beer. Something called InBev makes Budweiser? And there’s nobody named Busch around? What?”

The Wall Street Journal brought up Anheuser-Busch’s big sports marketing efforts, writing that they could be cut back.

One area that is potentially vulnerable is sports marketing. Anheuser, one of the largest sports marketers in the world, spent about $300 million last year for sports sponsorships, up 11% from the year earlier, according to IEG, a Chicago-based research unit of WPP Group that tracks sponsorships.

Anheuser is affiliated with dozens of sports, from baseball to equestrian competitions. It sponsors sports leagues big and small, including Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and Major League Lacrosse, and even the U.S. polo team. This summer, the company is one of the official beers of the Beijing Olympic Games.

But we think the best headline about the deal goes to The Nashua Telegraph, which splashed “This Bud’s for vous” across its business pages. The New Hampshire paper talked to Nashua resident Rob Masek.

“(He) envisions the Belgian takeover of an American beer having the same affect as when German auto manufacturer bought out the U.S.-based Chrysler. People stopped buying Chrysler cars because of the perception it was a weaker product, he said.

Masek can see people attending a NASCAR event questioning those who would dare drink a Belgian beer. ” ‘What are you doing? It’s un-American,’ ” Masek imagines the conversation going.

We’ll see how this one plays out. In the meantime, sit back. Have a cold one.

Keep an eye on:

• The head of Tribune Co’s publishing division and publisher of the Chicago Tribune is retiring, a week after the company’s new leaders said they would overhaul their newspapers to cut costs and try to attract more readers as they struggle with dismal advertising sales and falling circulation (Reuters)
• A controversial push by the Screen Actors Guild to defeat a recent accord negotiated by a rival union has touched off an open rebellion within Hollywood’s largest actors guild (Los Angeles Times)
• News and information company Bloomberg LP could be a hotly contested asset if a stake went on the block, although the most likely buyer was seen by some as founder and billionaire Michael Bloomberg himself (Reuters)
• News Corp’s MySpace plans to launch a global redesign next week in an attempt to widen its demographic and boost user engagement on the site (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

When we saw a memo hit the blogs this week saying that more Tribune layoffs could be coming, we put the reporting machinery into motion — only to find out that apparently it’s not true.

While future layoffs are perhaps inevitable, the latest memo authored by Chief Executive Sam Zell turned out to not be “latest” at all.

The subject line, which you can see at the Los Angeles Times Pressmens 20 Year Club, says “Reducing staff,” always a promising sign of news. Then there was this:

It is within this context that I am announcing we must reduce the number of staff positions within the publishing group and corporate office through a combination of voluntary separation programs, involuntary layoffs, attrition and closing of open positions. Each of our newspapers is making its own decision about which programs best suit its needs.

But here’s the thing. When we checked with Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman, he noted the similarity between this memo and one Zell had written in February. In fact, it’s the same memo, Weitman said, but with a June 2 date now. A source at one of Tribune’s papers who is not necessarily a friend of management confirmed that the memo is from February.

We’re asking our other Trib sources elsewhere in the empire to see if they got anything more recently, especially as Zell gets ready to update lenders on Tribune’s financial status this afternoon. We’re also waiting to hear back from Padgett and from Fading to Black, a death-of-newspapers site that picked up Padgett’s post.

(Photo: Reuters)

Why announce one deal when you can do four?

Just a day after billionaire investor Carl Icahn called for the removal of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, the company blasted out of the gate Wednesday morning, trumpeting deals with CBS, Walmart.com, Havas Digital and the newspaper consortium.

With CBS, Yahoo will carry some of its shows as the broadcaster continues to proliferate the Web with them through other partners AOL, Microsoft, and Google. For Walmart.com, Yahoo will be the primary marketing and sales channel for the retailer’s web site. Yahoo also said an additional 41 U.S. newspapers have joined its newspaper consortium, which lets them use Yahoo’s paid search system as well as have their stories carried over Yahoo properties.

Yahoo also inked a deal with Havas Digital to develop a proprietary media trading platform.

It would be considered good news during any other period. For now, investors are reserving judgement for August 1, the date of its annual shareholders meeting.

Meanwhile, what Reuters correspondent Michele Gershberg is reporting out of the Advertising 2.0 conference on Wednesday will likely dominate buzz in the Microsoft Yahoo betting circles. Speaking at the conference, Yahoo President Sue Decker tells the audience that engaged conversations with Microsoft continue, and that “there are many ways” a combo with Microsoft could be beneficial.

Here’s a riddle: What does Decker mean when she says Yahoo will be a principal in search as well as display. Can we interpret this as a sign it has no intentions to sell off its paid search business to Microsoft. Or, if it strikes a deal with Google, will she still consider Yahoo a principal in search?

(Reuters)

Keep an eye on:

• Sony struck a deal that lets ads distributed over the Internet be inserted into PlayStation 3 videogames (The Wall Street Journal)
• The upfront market is up and running with buyers saying the market is anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent complete. Fox and ABC are setting the market (AdAge.com)
• Tribune Co. wants to keep a minority stake in the Chicago Cubs after it sells control of the major league ballclub. It also wants to talk to comedian Jay Leno about a possible job (Chicago Tribune)

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban went on Dan Patrick’s radio show on May 22 to talk about all sorts of things, but what got us interested were his comments about the Chicago Cubs, which he wants to buy (You can read about his thoughts on smoking marijuana here). No one seems to have picked up on what he said until an excerpt ran in the latest edition of Sports Illustrated magazine, which came out Wednesday. Here are his verbatim answers, with Patrick’s questions paraphrased by us:

Q: When you go to Cubs games, do you go to be seen?

A: I go to have fun. …I’ve turned down 99.9 percent of [news] interviews when I’m in Chicago. You don’t see me on every news station in Chicago trying to promote the fact [that I want to buy the Cubs]. That just defeats the purpose.

Q: Is chasing the Cubs like trying to get the girl you want to notice you? She’s expensive and you may not have a shot at her.

A: If there’s a hooker you want, it all comes down to price, right? And I think that’s a better analogy.

Q: So the Cubs are your hooker?

A: Well, yes, bad choice of words.

Q: Metaphorically.

A: Metaphorically… Aw, that’s just going to get ripped apart, I know.

Cuban had some more thoughts on the Cubs:

Do I think there’s going to be challenges with certain Major League Baseball owners? Probably, because they don’t know me personally. They know me how the media covers me, or by reputation. The good news is, where there’s crossover in ownership… they’ve all said — to a person — that they’d stand up and say something positive about me. The reality is, in the acquisition of the Cubs, the book isn’t out yet, we don’t know what the structure of a deal’s going to look like, but it’s an asset that the Tribune Company needs to sell in a way that rewards them as much as possible, and I think that’s going to be the deciding fact.

He also talked about the business of owning the Mavericks:

I’d say out of the eight years I’ve owned them, we’ve made money two years. I think the NBA’s a little harder to make money in than Major League Baseball because of the way the cap is structured. … The reality is, in a cap system, small-market teams always get crushed because the cap goes up faster than the revenues of a small market can, and so Major League Baseball doesn’t have that problem. I think one of the great things about Major League Baseball is money can play a role, obviously, but smarts plays an even bigger role. And you know, when you put the two together like the Red Sox in particular, good things can happen.

If I’m fortunate enough to acquire the Cubs, that would be the approach that we’d take. I don’t think you’d see me come in there and try to outspend George Steinbrenner as an example. I hopefully will be smarter.

Patrick also asked him about what changes he’d make to the team and Wrigley Field, which Tribune may sell separately:

Q: It’s still going to be called Wrigley?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: You wouldn’t change the facade or name?

A: Yeah, I was going to change it to Mark Cuban Stadium. … No, I’m not going to change it! The funny thing is, people are going in there to expect me to make all these changes just for the sake of change. But I’m not stupid. What makes Wrigley special is the fact that it is Wrigley.

Finally, Patrick asked if Cuban would be remembered more for his turn on Dancing With the Stars than his other activities:

In terms of real numbers, absolutely. I mean, they tell you when you go on, you can come up with a cure for cancer, but you’ll always be known for being on Dancing With the Stars.

Q: Did you have an outfit refusal?

A: Yeah I did. I did more than once. I learned after the first week that, you know, you can make mistakes. When I went in, I was like, “OK, trust them, and just take advantage of their experience.” After I got the feedback after the first outfit that I wore, you know, I had this hobo outfit, and someone called it an insult to hobos everywhere.

(Photo: Reuters)

It was a case of baseketball at the Sports Lawyers Association annual conference in San Francisco this week when the Chicago Cubs came up in conversation.

The Cubs, as most Media File readers know, is the pro baseball team being sold by Tribune Co as it looks for a way to dig away at its mountain of debt after it was taken private by Chicago real estate mogul and noted raconteur Sam Zell (careful with that link. It’s NSFW). One potential bidder is Dallas Mavericks owner and blogger Mark Cuban, who got quite a plug during the conference.

Thomas Ostertag, senior vice president and general counsel for Major League Baseball, was giving a state-of-the-sport speech to an audience of several hundred sports industry officials and attorneys. Here’s what he said about the Cubs:

“We do expect this sale to get more public attention than really almost any sale I can think of in the history of our game, putting aside perhaps the sale of a guy named Babe Ruth to the Yankees way, way back.”

That’s when Joel Litvin, president of league and basketball operations for the National Basketball Association said, “I’m sorry Tom, can I make a plug for Mark Cuban as the next owner of the Cubs?”

Cue laugh from the crowd.

Litvin pressed on: “He’s smart, innovative and entrepreneurial.”

Ostertag smirked and replied, ”Moving on.”

More hilarity ensued, especially because few people believe Cuban has a shot at getting the team. But even if he doesn’t, he has plenty on his plate already.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in San Francisco. Writing and links by Robert MacMillan in New York)

(Photo: Reuters)

Dallas Morning News and Providence Journal publisher AH Belo Corp is getting some online representation. David Morgan,  who worked at Time Warner’s AOL between September 2007 and February 2008, is joining the Dallas-based company’s board, the Morning News reported on Thursday.

Morgan was founder of Tacoda and Real Media. See Buzzmachine proprietor Jeff Jarvis’s short, complimentary writeup about Morgan here .

Also joining is John Puerner, former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, whose territory butts up against Belo’s Press-Enterprise daily newspaper in Riverside County, California.

Mr. Puerner, 56, a private investor, spent most of his career with Tribune Co. He was publisher, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Times from April 2000, shortly after Tribune agreed to acquire it, until May 2005, when he retired from Tribune.

And here’s the simple, if somewhat vague reasoning:

“Their backgrounds in both print and Internet media will add crucial insights to the board’s deliberations,” said J. McDonald Williams, lead director of A.H. Belo.

Belo, which recently split from the larger Belo Corp (which remains a television broadcasting company), is yet one more U.S. newspaper company trying to manage the downturn that papers have been going through as print advertisers chase the readers who are leaving newspapers in favor of getting their news online.

When Rupert Murdoch said the other day that he wasn’t investing in newspapers anymore, we assumed that he was being ironic, especially as it came in the same telephone conference call with News Corp analysts and reporters in which he said that he thought his agreement to buy Newsday from Tribune Co was all but sewn up .

That goes to show you what they say about assuming things.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday , and we subsequently confirmed , that News Corp isn’t going to chase Newsday after all. Instead, it’s pulling its $580 million bid, paving the way for Cablevision to likely take over its fellow Long Island media outlet. New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman is in the race still as far as we know, but it’s hard to see how Tribune will take his $580 million bid when Cablevision has a $70 million sweetener on top of that.

Why? Apparently the economics were unjustifiable. What could that mean? The short list: Tribune’s quarterly financial results, which came out late Friday, show the company continuing to lose advertising revenue at its newspapers; media ownership laws might make it tough for Murdoch to take the paper yet keep his New York-area television broadcast licenses; and finally, a bid higher than $650 million is already a higher valuation for a newspaper than most sensible financial folks see as feasible.

That didn’t seem to bother Murdoch before. Here’s what he said on the News Corp earnings call (reproduced from our earlier blog entry ):

No, I don’t think Cablevision will prevail. Just be patient for a couple of days (inaudible). We’re certainly not in the business of getting into an auction here …

We’re hoping to wrap it up within the next week. And I don’t mean the end of next week, I mean within the next seven days … It takes two to agree. But we’re at a pretty advanced stage. I’ll just leave it at that at the moment.

Here’s what he subsequently said at the Time 100 dinner later that week, according to the New York Observer (whose owner Jared Kushner also was interested in bidding, though a source close to Kushner Properties told us recently that he has no idea what he wants to do about a bid right now — we’re guessing nothing):

“Yeah, I might have gone a little too far saying it was a certainty,” he told The Observer. “I was telling the truth, but you don’t know until …”

Until Saturday.