Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Extra! Extra!



I think it’s maybe one more step in the demise of newspapers.

Maybe you can understand this better than I can:

The Tribune Publishing Company is being led off the primrose path by its board and its board chairman, Michael Ferro.

Last week they announced that the company will change its name to “tronc.”  Yup. tronc. All lower case. It’s supposed to mean “tribune online content.” Which has been about as popular as your average run-of-the-mill newspaper-generated online news and entertainment content. You know what I mean.

Keep in mind that Tribune is America’s third largest newspaper publisher, with 10 dailies (including the Los Angeles Times) and some community tabloids.

Last week after the board meeting Ferro announced that tronc will be a “content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels.”

Maybe this means no tronc-generated content will be given away free anymore. Could mean other things, too. I thought about saying “Beam me up, Scotty.”

Here’s the thing. Ferro’s announcement did not mention the word “newspaper.” Did I mention that tronc owns only newspapers?

One other thing: at the board meeting, Tribune shareholders cast 49% of their votes against the board’s own nominees for director, mostly in protest against Tribune’s refusal to consider a seemingly generous buyout bid from Gannett. Ferro and the rest don’t want to give up the sinking ship. You know what I mean.


  






Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

No comments:

Post a Comment