It’s the afternoon after Thanksgiving. The stuffing isn’t sitting too well. The relatives aren’t leaving until Monday. You have work to do. Then you spot a tweet by media mogul Rupert Murdoch that your publishing company is in play. Pass the Maalox.
It’s what greeted Tribune Publishing last Friday afternoon. And now it’s gone to the trouble of officially squashing what it calls a “rumor” tweeted by Murdoch, saying that the company is “not engaged in discussion or a process to sell the company."
The memo added, "While our policy is not to comment on rumors, given the source of this speculation and the fact that it has received considerable public attention, the company believes a statement to employees is warranted.”
The endgame for Tribune Publishing is unknown, of course, but the memo shows the company taking a proactive stance on who is driving the conversation and not letting Rupert’s Murdoch’s 668,000 followers on Twitter get the better of the company.
Murdoch, co-chairman of News Corp., said on Twitter that he had heard Tribune Publishing would be sold and that the Los Angeles Times would be spun off to a local group involving billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.
"Strong word Tribune newspaper group to be bought by big Wall St firm, LA Times to go to philanthropist Eli Broad and local group," Murdoch tweeted.
Tribune Publishing, which owns the LA Times, Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers, has been on something of a roller coaster since it was spun off from Tribune Co. in 2014.
In October, Tribune Publishing started an employee buyout program that was expected to cut staff buy about 7 percent. Additional layoffs were expected after the buyouts, according to several reports, with the jobs of up to 80 staffers in jeopardy.
In early Sept., several members of the LA Times management team were ousted, including publisher Austin Beutner, who also ran the San Diego Union-Tribune after its Tribune purchase in May.
Since Beutner's ouster, civic and business leaders in Los Angeles have stirred speculation about a sale, calling for local ownership, according to the LA Times.
Tribune Publishing, like all major newspaper companies, has been upended by the Web. The advertising model that newspaper products relied on for decades is moribund, and now media companies with heavy exposure to print are scrambling to find new revenue and reduce overall costs.
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