Clash of Cultures Exacerbates Woes For Tribune Co.

CLASH OF CULTURES EXACERBATES WOES FOR TRIBUNE CO
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sarah Ellison sarah.ellison@wsj.com]
When Chicago-based Tribune Co. acquired Times Mirror six years ago, it was more than an $8 billion fusion of two media companies. The merger also threw together two competing and incompatible cultures, each rooted in the traditions of their respective flagship newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Some Tribune executives think the Times is arrogant, spoiled and overstaffed, a paper with global ambitions that has ignored local readers. Some Times people consider the Chicago Tribune an inferior, provincial product. Times denizens, proud of their city's position as the nation's second largest, see the paper's owners as bean counters in business suits. Tribune thinks its Californian charges are too slick and prefer to take pride in the company's Chicago roots. Unlike many battles between journalists and corporate bosses, which focus largely on spending, this one is also driven by fundamental differences between the philosophies of the two newspapers. Even in 2000, some executives saw trouble looming. The solution dreamed up by Tribune and Times Mirror was to merge their operations in a way that allowed them to sell combined packages of newspaper and local TV advertising in the same big, urban markets. The strategy was a dud.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116312902448219509.html?mod=todays_us_pa...
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* A media match plagued by a clash of cultures
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-clash10nov10,1,650335...