The Century Foundation If Tribune goes down,
Sam Zell will still be very rich, but he'll have presided over the evisceration of some of our best newspapers, says
Peter Osnos. "In his
session with [Portfolio editor
Joanne] Lipman, Zell singled out the New York Times: 'If you want to be a charitable trust, be a charitable trust. If you don't want to be a charitable trust, then you've got to focus on producing a return for investor’s capital.' Fair enough. But what if you are a lousy business and a newspaper that is no longer much good at real newsgathering? Then, Sam Zell, you are nothing."
