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Recently in Salon Media

Media
The magic's gone
What will the all-news networks do now that the McCain and Bradley dramas are over?
By Sean Elder
[03/13/00]

Media
Rushing to judgment
Having nailed down exit poll data the same way Bush and Gore nailed down their nominations, the network anchors were free to opine smugly on Super Tuesday.
By Sean Elder
[03/08/00]

Column
Real Life Rock Top 10

By Greil Marcus
[03/06/00]

Media
Back to school days
Our media columnist offers a satirical look at campuses presidential candidates should skip if they want to avoid a Bob Jones University scandal of their own.
By Sean Elder
[03/03/00]

Media
Election-free TV
The Big 3 networks are giving the candidates about 30 seconds of air time an evening. Hell, most ads are longer than that.
By Sean Elder
[02/29/00]

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Though business analysts were split on the deal (Times Mirror stock rose 76 percent upon news of the merger, closing at 84 and a half Monday; the Tribune's plummeted to a low of $27.88 before rebounding to the $30 range), most seemed to agree that the two companies had cobbled together ... something.

In the wake of the Time Warner-AOL marriage, all media mergers must be described as coming in the wake of the Time Warner-AOL merger. And in fact, the Chandler family (which still controls 66 percent of Times Mirror's stock) thought Willes (his role in the L.A. Times-Staples Center fiasco notwithstanding) was not "forward looking." And in the age of new and old media convergence, forward looking means investing in the Internet.

So it was not too surprising that, come Tuesday, the Tribune Co. (which, for all intents and purposes, acquired Times Mirror) was spinning this deal as ... a Web thing! This was in part a ploy to appease certain investors who failed to see the beauty of the new alliance. The initial gagging reaction of Tribune investors resulted in part from their perception of the merger as a move away from the company's Internet strategy, which has been more aggressive than that of most newspaper companies.

Broadcast and new-media properties are what makes the mare go in the world of media stocks -- and though Times Mirror boasts seven newspapers and 19 magazines, it has no TV stations to match the Trib's 22. Its Web holdings are also negligible.

Granted, the L.A. Times Web site has evolved into one of the better newspaper sites in the U.S. But the paper's popular Calendar section exists online as Calendar Live, a co-production of the Times and Citysearch. That doesn't do much to sweeten the Tribune's new-media pot. Meanwhile, the Tribune has invested heavily in AOL, iVillage, Excite@Home and Peapod.com.

So what, Trib shareholders (and more than a few media watchers) wanted to know, is with all those dead trees? What does that get us that we didn't have already?

Clout, according to Tribune Publishing president Jack Fuller. In the company's press release he saluted the history of shared excellence the combined papers had (over 80 Pulitzers between them). Then he noted that the combined company will have an expanded presence in foreign bureaus and Washington and increased national coverage from other bureaus around the U.S. "We'll have premier international and national coverage and deep, extensive coverage of Washington," said Fuller.

So despite all the misgivings of the affected reporters out there, the Tribune Company (as the merged entity will be known) could be more than one of the nation's largest newspaper companies. It could be the nation's largest newspaper.

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