If you’re thinking Sam Zell’s response to Richard Blumenthal’s letter sounds a little familiar, you’re not the only one. Parts of Zell’s letter appear to be almost identical to a statement issued by the Tribune Company shortly after Blumenthal originally said the consolidation of The Courant, WTIC-TV and WTXX-TV appears to violate an FCC ban on cross-ownership. Blumenthal raised his concerns on April 8; Zell’s response was dated May 19. Links to both appear in the post below.
But what strikes us as important is not what Zell said, but what he didn’t say. You might recall, the AG asked Zell several pointed questions, among them, “Will job losses result from this consolidation? If so, how many, what type and which organization will bear the brunt of the layoffs?” He also asked, “To what extent will advertising functions and business operations be combined? Will advertisers have the same number and variety of choices?”
Perhaps we’re missing something, but we don’t see that these questions have been answered in Zell’s response.
It’s possible, indeed probable, there’s more to the story. Zell’s letter does say that Blumenthal “had a productive meeting” with publisher Rich Graziano. But, at the moment, we just don’t know.
In a statement that the attorney general issued in response to Zell’s letter, the AG says, “My office will continue to review Tribune’s letter, and its FCC waiver and federal law, as well as additional developments and facts.”
That’s probably a good thing. In fact, we can think of several additional questions the AG might want to ask of Tribune and others.
For instance, in addition to asking Tribune whether any job losses will result from the consolidation, he might want to ask whether any of the layoffs earlier this year were done in anticipation of the consolidation. (We’re just wondering because it’s common knowledge around Broad Street that the consolidation was in the works long before it was publicly announced.)
He might also want to ask whether the company will commit to hiring back staff once the economy starts to improve, thus giving Connecticut readers and viewers the kind of news-gathering organization they deserve.
And, if he hasn’t already, he might want to ask the publishers of some of the other local papers how they feel about cross-ownership. In particular he could ask whether they consider the current arrangement to be anticompetitive. In the long run, that could be the most interesting question of all.
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What baloney! Yes, this “Part Two of a One-Part Series” is extraordinary for the depth of it’s BS factor.
After shouting from the rooftops how each and every action is designed to consolidate, unify, de-silo, re-agnosticize the separate TV, web and newsroom elements, Tribune now tells the AG it is working to keep them separate. Surely, Dick Blumenthal can see through this. Surely, he will see that he is being lied to.
All he needs to do is look at the merging of the newsrooms, the conscription of TV people to write and writers to TV. All he needs to do is to read the official announcement of Levine’s appointment and the job description of the “assignments czar’ to see that the trumpeted goal is melding the different forces into one — not the opposite.
Likely there’s not much Blumenthal can do but surely he can’t sit still when they treat him so shabbily.
And here’s a little hypothetical: What if, say, the publisher or some other high-ranking exec got in a little scrape with the law, and the order came down not to run anything about it because it was, obviously, of so little consequence. Do you think the TV or web folks would make a decision on whether to run it — independent of the newspaper side? Is it possible that no medium would have the independence necessary to run it? Isn’t that part of the FCC’s concern? That one center of power controls so much of the flow of public information for an entire region?
Not in Zell’s world.