Thursday, August 21, 2008

Pore ol Trib

From Newspaper Death Watch, a dying-newspaper Web site:
Tribune Co. posted a $4.5 billion loss on a massive writeoff of goodwill to reflect the lower value of its newspaper assets. There was no good news in the results. Print revenue was down 15%, classified revenue off 26%, circulation sales down 2%, even online revenue was down 4%. The company’s next move will be to sell the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and possibly its famous headquarters building in Chicago to meet a debt payment. ...

Read the whole post here. It's really sad about the building maybe going on the block. Tribune Tower is a spectacular building, right there on Michigan Avenue just north of the river. It's all ornate and Gothic, with gargoyles and like that, by some margin the neatest building I ever worked in. Really one of the neatest I've ever seen. Lately WGN's been running ads about a makeover and they show one of the doors in the ad. I saw Richard Nixon on the sidewalk in front, on his way up to talk to the powers. We proles used to stand out in front on bright days and watch the expensive-looking women from the offices. Big-city women really put on the dog in those days. Lady of my acquaintance told me, 'Go on over to State Street and look at the housewives out shopping ... that's more your speed.'

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