Job Cuts Coming To Tribune Company
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Job cuts are coming to the Tribune Company as a result of a major reorganization.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's David Roe reports, the change involves giving Chicago Tribune publisher Tony Hunter oversight of all company papers nationwide, except the Los Angeles Times. Hunter will oversee the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, The Sun of Baltimore, The Hartford Courant, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., and the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.
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With Hunter taking on more duties, Tribune Co. promoted Vince Casanova to president and chief operating officer of Chicago Tribune Media Group. In that role, Casanova will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Chicago Tribune and other holdings in that division.
Some jobs are being eliminated in the overhaul, Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said. He declined to provide specifics, but the reshuffling will reduce the company's finance and administrative departments, and the job cuts may come from those areas.
The Tribune Company employs more than 12,000 people at its newspapers, television stations and other media properties.
The company has been through hard times and scandals in recent years. In December 2008, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it wasn't generating enough revenue to repay more than $13 billion in debt incurred when real estate mogul Sam Zell took the company private a year earlier.
Later, a court-appointed examiner concluded that some aspects of real estate mogul Sam Zell's 2007 buyout deal for the company may have amounted to fraud.
Meanwhile, a scandal erupted around former chief executive officer Randy Michaels, who resigned in October of last year.
Michaels has been the subject of a number of reports about sordid behavior at the Tribune Tower. Last year, a front-page New York Times article said Michaels and his colleagues turned the Tribune Co. into a raunchy fraternity house environment in which he offered a waitress $100 to bear her breasts at a formal business dinner – among other claims.
More recently, Time Out Chicago's Robert Feder reports the book, The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers, includes a graphic anecdote about Michaels involvng sex acts on a Tribune Tower terrace.
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