ZELL AND MCCAW: SOUL MATES

As other bloggers have observed recently, there is a somewhat eerie connection between Sam Zell and Wendy McCaw. Mr. Zell is the billionaire eccentric who recently purchased the Tribune Co. (owner of the Los Angeles Times), and Ms. McCaw is .... well, you know. Another interesting connection shared by these two newsroom owners is an awesome decline in newspaper subscriptions since taking over their respective companies. To be honest, I only had a passing interest in these similarities until I read a Studio Briefing entry titled "Zell Goes On The Air -- Unbeknownst To Him." Here it is ...

National Public Radio's All Things Considered has played excerpts of a talk delivered by Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell to the company's top Washington journalists in February. In it, Zell accused of the journalists of not generating revenue for the company, "so all of you are overhead." He maintained that Tribune employees -- the company owns 23 TV stations and 11 newspapers -- have failed to find ways to attract more viewers and readers. "Three guys in a garage create YouTube, and we've got 800 people in Chicago [Tribune's headquarters] who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground." Since Zell took over the company, Tribune outlets have been hit with substantial layoffs and cutbacks. "And I promise you the next 60 days will be even more tumultuous," Zell added. While he declined to discuss his remarks with NPR, his lawyer, David Bradford, told the public broadcaster: "He's somebody who speaks the unvarnished truth."

Well, he speaks unvarnished something. At any rate, this got me thinking about Wendy's feelings towards the Santa Barbara News-Press employees. For example, when the meltdown first occurred back in 2006, the Independent reported the following regarding her "Note to Readers" ...

In that note to readers, McCaw dismissed the mass exodus of high ranking editors from her paper, "as disgruntled ex-employees," who left because she would no longer allow them to abuse her paper by using the news pages as a loudspeaker for their hidden and not-so-hidden political agendas.

The following year, attorney Barry Cappello gave us some more insight into Wendy's opinion of her journalists ...

Mr. Cappello said newspapers are anachronisms, and journalists have failed to realize this ..."The meteor has hit. We’re watching the end of the industry," he said. "Journalists think they can write what they want when they want. I don’t know if that can survive in this age."

So, here's my question ... What other cases have you heard of where the owner of a company blames all the employees for the company's problems? I mean, don't CEO's get paid hundreds of millions of dollars because they are responsible for the well being of their businesses? Think about this for a minute: these two people actually used a public forum to basically say that their entire staff is a bunch of morons. Most of us have worked for companies that employ a large number of people, and I'm sure all of these companies have had their fair share of problems over the years. But imagine how you'd feel if the owner went to an event or wrote a letter and stated that the company's ills were due to the incompetence of all the workers.

Over 50 people have quit or been fired from the News-Press since July of 2006. That is a HUGE number of people compared to the size of entire News-Press staff. And Wendy would actually have you believe that every single one of them had to go because of their unwavering desire to place bias in the paper. Are you kidding me!? Likewise for Mr. Zell; he wants you to believe that his company is losing money because 800 journalists don't know what they're doing. Well, I've got news for both Sam Zell and Wendy McCaw: that's not how it works. You don't get to buy a company, run it into the ground, and then say everything would be fine if not for those pesky idiots who run around and do their jobs all day. If that were the case, Wall Street would call for the ouster of the employees; not the executives.

How nice would it have been if Ms. McCaw and Mr. Zell held a conference call early on with all the employees and said, "You know, times are tough. But you are all great folks, and we're going to get through this, because you are some of the most professional people I've ever had the pleasure to work with." That's what you call leadership. Instead, though, these two chose to declare war on the very people they need to succeed. And they both seem to have a disdain for the very profession in which they chose to be involved.

I have to wonder what Zell and McCaw see upon viewing a hole in the ground.