Tronc Awards Potential Millions to Two Top Execs; CEO, CFO Could Get Last Tronc Laugh if Gannett Buys the Company

In a move of perhaps canny timing, two top Tronc executives are now enjoying enhanced pay packages – ones that will pay out millions of dollars should Tronc be sold to Gannett or another bidder. Further, the possibility of sale – still a quite live one this summer – could be on the table ...

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Gannett Outlines Its New Waiting Game

Gannett CEO Bob Dickey is slowing down in his quest to acquire Tribune Publishing, but he has no plans on stopping. Today, Dickey’s Gannett took a public deep breath – and vowed to persist in its unwanted wooing of Tribune. Surprising some, Gannett put no more money on the table. The company ...

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Newsonomics: Mitra Kalita Leaves L.A. Times for CNN

The Los Angeles Times has just lost an important digital leader, as S. Mitra Kalita — just named as one of the ten most poachable players in media — leaves her job as managing editor for digital strategy of the paper to become vice president of digital programming at CNN, starting later this ...

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With Soon-Shiong Investment, Michael Ferro Pulls Rabbit Out of His Hat

Say one thing for Michael Ferro: the would-be showbiz aficionado can certainly pull a rabbit out of a hat. The chairman of Tribune Publishing proved it again Monday when he got his board to reject much larger rival newspaper company Gannett’s second offer of $15 per share to buy the company, ...

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Tribune’s Michael Ferro: Sell to Gannett? We’ll Buy Gannett!

Tribune Publishing chairman Michael Ferro hasn’t said much in public since Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the U.S., went public with its hostile takeover bid for his company. But inside the company, publisher of a slate of struggling but nationally recognized broadsheets like The ...

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Tribune’s Anti-Gannett Strategy: Tronc, The Lagos Gambit and Stalling

Now, in the likely last chapters of the Tribune saga, parody precedes event. As Justin Dearborn – sans his boss, Tribune board chairman Michael Ferro – outlined the company’s new “billion-dollar” thinking Wednesday, a column in LA’s Downtowner proceeded to steal his strategic thunder. Entitled ...

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Newsonomics: Can a Ferro-Bezos Buddy Act Help Fend Off Gannett’s Bid for Tribune?

On Thursday, Tribune Publishing chairman Michael Ferro took to the airwaves, selling investors on his rejection of a seemingly generous takeover bid by Gannett. The company’s spent recent days talking up its potential for growth on its own — notably the planned “content monetization ...

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Newsonomics: In Southern California’s Newspaper Chaos, Is Anyone Really Speaking For The Readers?

William Baer, assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, had already bluntly told all involved in the Freedom Communications newspaper bankruptcy auction that Tribune Publishing should stay out of the bidding. He sent an email two days before ...

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Feds Sue Tribune Hours After It ‘Wins’ Bid for Freedom Communications

What started as a marathon has turned into an obstacle course. In today’s wee hours, just before dawn, Tribune Publishing was named as the “winner” in the Orange County Register bankruptcy auction. Tribune’s winning bid of $56 million in cash – topping high-end estimates of the combined value ...

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Tribune, the Register Auction and DOJ’s Scarlet Letter

For those who have been following the ongoing tragicomedy of California’s dying newspaper industry, today, March 16, marks a climax. And as with all amazing stories, the moments leading up to that climax have made it a nail-biter. The real action is mundane enough: Today is the day that final ...

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