At Flagging Tribune, Tales of a Bankrupt Culture

Sam Zell and Randy Michaels, who was promoted to chief executive of the Tribune Company in December 2009, arrived with much fanfare, suggesting they were going to breathe innovation and reinvention into the conservative company. By all accounts, the reinvention did not go well.

At a time when the media industry has struggled, the debt-ridden Tribune Company has done even worse. Less than a year after Zell bought the company, it tipped into bankruptcy, listing $7.6 billion in assets against a debt of $13 billion, making it the largest bankruptcy in the history of the American media industry. More than 4,200 people have lost jobs since the purchase, while resources for the Tribune newspapers and television stations have been slashed. The new management did transform the work culture, however. Based on interviews with more than 20 employees and former employees of Tribune, Michaels's and his executives' use of sexual innuendo, poisonous workplace banter and profane invective shocked and offended people throughout the company. Tribune Tower, the architectural symbol of the staid company, came to resemble a frat house, complete with poker parties, juke boxes and pervasive sex talk. The company said Michaels had the support of the board.