By Michael Miner
The deck officers of this armada speak a Dilbertian tongue. “In most companies, a Berlin Wall separates the different media; at the Tribune, all media units report to David L. Underhill, vice president for video and audio publishing,” Auletta observes. “‘The goal of our unit,’ says Underhill… ‘is to be a synergy group. I love the word.’”
Perhaps it’s time to replace Lincoln’s axiom guarding the front door with a cheery “We gather content to gather content.”
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I sense Auletta letting his scorn peek through. He describes the editor of the company’s Fort Lauderdale paper as a “neat, mustachioed man of 50 who tends to speak in cliches (‘Nothing succeeds like success!’). But he is thoroughly up-to-date on Tribune Co. philosophy: ‘This is, in all honesty, a reader-driven newspaper.’ Maucker says he wants readers to be ‘comfortable.’ And they won’t be if the ‘newspaper breaks on the doorstep’ because it is ‘heavy’ with government and investigative news.” Is there a more quietly contemptuous word than “mustachioed”?
And Auletta has Barbara Weeks, general manager of CLTV, explaining the Tribune’s cable news operation. “By bundling the only local cable news channel with the number one newspaper in Chicago–not to mention the number one radio station, the number one independent TV station (which doubles as a cable superstation), the Chicago Cubs and various online offerings–‘any of the Tribune business units can get together and offer a super-synergistic effort. It’s very compelling to an advertiser.’”
An old-fashioned newspaperman read Auletta’s article and told me he missed the point. The question Auletta should have posed is this: If the Tribune Company is making so much money, how come it doesn’t publish a great paper? With all due respect, Auletta’s point is that this isn’t the question. (And no ambitious deck officer better get caught asking it.) The Tribune Company believes its dollars are much more shrewdly spent on synergy than greatness.
Even if the Tribune Company has shrewdly pocketed a whole ring of the keys that unlock the future, the compromises it has made collecting them are unattractive. That said, the consumer in me doesn’t seek repentance; it wants the company to get on with what it’s doing and do it better. In the past several days I’ve had reason to turn frequently to the on-line Tribune in search of prep sports coverage. What I’ve discovered is that this coverage isn’t synergistic, complementary, above and beyond, or anything else. In this simple little area the Tribune is incompetent. The scores posted are frequently two days behind the calendar. The print Tribune I know and trust wouldn’t dare be so unreliable. There is a wall, I presume, that prevents the flaws of the new media from spreading to the old. That wall had better stand.
