Sam Zell

The Dolans win the bidding for the Long Island daily for $650 million. The deal is structured the way Sam Zell needed it to be--the Dolans pick up 97 percent of the company, while the Tribune company retains 3 percent. Here's the release:

CABLEVISION TO ACQUIRE 97% STAKE IN NEWSDAY MEDIA GROUP THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH TRIBUNE COMPANY IN A $650 MILLION TRANSACTION

Returns Newsday to Long Island-based Ownership After Nearly 40 Years  read more »

Later this morning, Newsday should belong to the Dolans.

Their $650 million bid will likely be accepted by Tribune owner Sam Zell later this morning, and the only thing that stands in the way are "minor details," said Charles Dolan in an interview last night with Newsday. The Times reports that Charles and James Dolan were in Chicago two weeks ago talking to Sam Zell, and Cablevision bankers and lawyers are there now hashing out the final terms of the deal.  read more »

Rupert Murdoch was standing in a deep corner of the Rose Hall at about 7:30 p.m. last night to toast his fellow influencers: It was the Time 100 celebration, an event that drums up publicity for the magazine's decreasingly influential list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The day before, Mr. Murdoch had promised investors and reporters listening in on a News Corp. investors' call that he'd prevail in his purchase of Newsday over rival bidders Mort Zuckerman and the Dolans.  read more »

Rupert Murdoch said he "absolutely" trusts Sam Zell to sell him Newsday—after all, Mr. Zell is a man of his word, right?

"We're hoping to wrap it up within the next week, and I don't mean the end of next week, I mean within the next seven days. It takes two to agree, but we're at a pretty advanced stage. I trust Mr. Zell absolutely. He's famous for being a man of his word. We think everything's in hand."  read more »

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Sam Zell--Tribune owner, real estate mogul, hog-lover (and by hog, we mean motorcycle)--says commercial real estate, especially in dense urban cities like Manhattan, will weather this financial storm just fine, thanks to renewed investment in mortgage-backed securities and foreign buyers.

``After they get through bashing George Bush, the very next question is, `Where's my visa?''' Mr. Zell told Bloomberg News during an interview in New York City. ``There is not another environment in the world that matches the U.S. in terms of opportunity, creativity, acceptance of change, acceptance of failure."

Mr. Zell was less bullish, however, about those repositories of the hellish known as the suburbs.  read more »

On Friday, April 25, Redbelt, a riveting David Mamet cops-and-con-men drama set in the world of professional jujitsu, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The cool table at the after-party, held at the Honey nightclub on West 14th Street, included Mr.  read more »

And how was your day? If you're a media critic or reporter, it was anything but slow.

Starting last night when "Time Reporters" broke the news that Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli would be leaving the paper followed closely by The Wall Street Journal's Merissa Marr reporting Sam Zell's Tribune Co. was "closing in on an agreement to sell its Long Island newspaper Newsday" to her paper's parent company, News Corp., this was a day of constant scoops and fast (sometimes loose) seat-of-the-pants analysis.  read more »

Sam Zell sent out a company-wide email last night, and reemphasized, in slightly different words, that there are people interested in Newsday. While speaking about the "disposition front," he says there have been "specific inquiries" about Newsday. Here's the entire memo:

Lender Call Recap  read more »

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Since Sam Zell acknowledged for the first time today that there are outside parties asking about Newsday, the paper's publisher, Tim Knight, was forced to acknowledge it as well. He has just sent a memo out to his staff, explaining that he knows "this creates uncertainty." The memo is revealing since it seems to show that Mr. Knight knows as much as we know: not much.  read more »

Sam Zell was asked about the potential sale of Newsday in a conference call with investors, and said there's an interest among outsiders but no decision has been made yet.

"As we previously acknowledged, we have been approached by a number of parties that have a keen interest," he said, when in fact it's the first time he's acknowledged this publicly. "We have reached no conclusions with anybody at this juncture. And we’re discussing if that does or does not make sense for us and the Tribune Company going forward."  read more »

The Tribune Company conference call is still going on. In introductory remarks, Sam Zell told investors that when he bought Tribune there was originally a “goal to preserve everything together.” Presumably he means all the newspapers, Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs, and the broadcasting properties. But the “significant erosion” of advertising money and revenue drops in the newspaper industry, he said, has “certainly put that plan into some question. And we’re forced to consider the divestiture of some of our assets.”

Word was spreading last week that Sam Zell was in deep danger of credit default, but there might be an out (in fact, it's an out that Mr. Zell seems to already have begun working on). Reuters is reporting:  read more »

According to Richard Pérez-Peña, people who have been awed and amused by Sam Zell's dirty mouth have been "twittering" and "tut-tutting" about more serious matters lately. In today's Times, he writes that Mr. Zell is in danger of falling into credit default.  read more »

Postcard From the Edge: The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau blog features a heartfelt essay by Mudhafer al-Husaini, a young Iraqi employee of the paper, entitled My Generation, in which al-Husaini tells of college life immediately following the fall of Baghdad: "Four years which were supposed to be my prettiest years ever, because you don’t get such a chance twice in Iraq, became my worst."

The Sound of Silence: In The Guardian, writer Nicholas Lezard profiles the legendary Moxon Garbutt, a writer whose alleged raison d’être "was to leave no trace of himself behind, except his influence—and even that to be ambiguous and tentative." For some strange reason, all the commenters on the site think a famous writer who never wrote a word is an April Fool's prank. Lezard jumps into the fray to declare "Moxon Garbutt is as real as you or I. I can't think why everyone assumes this is an April Fool." He would've been more convincing if he said nothing at all.

Speaking of Fools...: Didja hear the one about the Tribune Company changing it's name to ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc.? We're laughin' all the way to our buyouts. (WSJ via Romenesko)

Featuring a Cast of Over 4,000: ABC News' Marcus Baram reports that Oliver Stone's W—about a humble, self-made man who remade the world in his humble image—begins shooting this month with Josh Brolin as George W. Bush. Hey, wait, is it a comedy in the spirit of Dr. Strangelove? "In one scene, Bush practices his parachute landing in the White House pool but forgets to properly release the harness and sinks to the bottom. In another scene, Rumsfeld doodles a drawing of Condoleeza Rice standing on a piano with a globe spinning on her finger."

On Jan. 15, Sam Zell dropped by the bleak house that is the Melville, N.Y., headquarters of Newsday, Long Island’s newspaper.

It was to be a pep talk: The last decade, characterized by its nearly annual tradition of soul-wrenching job cuts, was over. “We’ve got to get off our ass,” he said to the assemblage of reporters and salesmen; it went over well, less like a scolding than a slap on the butt from Coach.

Two months later, a somber group showed up at the Newsday auditorium for cannoli, pecan pie and coffee to say goodbye to the 36 newsroom buyouts Tribune had exacted from the paper, including three national reporters, several business reporters, its features editor, its movie editor and two critics. (Some reporters were taken off other desks and transferred to the Long Island desk.)  read more »

Ante up!

Now suddenly everyone is interested in Newsday. The New York Times is reporting that a Manhattan media blockbuster trio is "in discussions" to buy the Melville-based newspaper: Rupert Murdoch, James Dolan and Mort Zuckerman. Sam Zell decides who's the winner.

It sets up a satisfying auction between Mr. Murdoch (Post-owner) and Mr. Zuckerman (Daily News-owner) and Mr. Dolan, who owns MSG, the Knicks, Rangers and Cablevision.  read more »

At 4 p.m. today Newsday chief editor John Mancini is meeting with reporters and staffers to discuss job cuts at the paper. This will be his second meeting; the first one was on Friday.

We just got an account of what happened on Friday from a reporter who was present:  read more »

It's been a miserable day on Long Island.

"It’s definitely more than everybody expected," said Zachary Dowdy, a reporter and representative to the Local 406 that represents Newsday employees, of the job cuts announced today at the Long Island daily.

A spokeswoman told us earlier that out of 120 employees, 25 newsroom jobs would be lost. But a senior newsroom source has told us that the number will actually be bigger: Somewhere closer to 30 to 40 jobs will be cut (25 of those will be unionized employees).  read more »

Well! While I was away at an interview for a couple of hours this afternoon, everything at Newsday blew up. All in all, 120 employees are losing a job, and the cuts start today (we do not have a clear indication of how many jobs in the newsroom will be lost). I'll have updates as they come in, but the mood over there is apparently bleak--significantly worse than it was earlier this week when everyone was expecting these cuts as we reported this week.  read more »

Before Sam Zell gets down to the dirty business of letting go some Newsday employees, he went down to the Washington bureau of the Tribune Company. While there, he managed to upset just about everyone.  read more »

It’s been a jittery two weeks in Melville.

Over the next week, Newsday reporters and editors are expecting an announcement about job cuts. Even veterans of the Vlad the Impaler year of 1995, in which Times Mirror ordered the elimination of 800 jobs from a payroll of 3,200, contemplate the coming week with dread.

“To be honest with you, it’s really grim here,” said James Bernstein, a business reporter and 30-year-veteran.  read more »

The Los Angeles Times has a new editor, according to a press release that just went out.

"The Los Angeles Times Media Group (LATMG) today unveiled significant changes to its organization and leadership team, including the announcement that Russ Stanton has been named Los Angeles Times Editor," the release reads in part. And this from publisher David Hiller: “Russ Stanton combines great personal leadership, communication skills, the highest journalistic standards and a commitment to excellence, and has been championing much of our work to become a truly multimedia news organization that’s a relevant and engaging part of the 24-hour-a-day world of news and information.”

As we reported yesterday, the choice of an editor to replace Jim O'Shea has divided the newsroom.  read more »

As we documented this morning, there's a big divide over who should run the L.A. Times, and before Sam Zell and publisher David Hiller announce their choice, they're getting some dirty work out of the way: Job cuts are on the way.

Mr. Hiller writes that the paper will elimiminate 100-150 positions at the Times, which includes ending open positions, and laying some off. Sam Zell writes in his own e-mail that he wants to add staff some day, but: "Unfortunately, I can't turn this ship from its course of the past 10 years within just a few months." Mr. Zell said there will be job cuts at all Tribune papers.

Click "read more" to see both memos.  read more »

Sam Zell, the Rabelaisian real estate billionaire who bought The Los Angeles Times’ parent company for $8.2 billion in December, went out to Los Angeles last week to shake things up at the left-coast newsroom notorious for its turmoil—overturns, layoffs, bad management.  read more »