Sam Zell Blames Tribune Failure on 'Greedy' Journalists

Sam Zell must miss being the most hated man in the newspaper industry. Why else would the ever-pungent real estate billionaire be speaking up about his disastrous time running Tribune Co., all this time later? More to the point, why would he be blaming the very people whose company he trashed, and whose pension fund he despoiled, for the misfortunes he inflicted on them? Zell said, “I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to convince the people that it was in their own interest to modify the way in which the business ran, so as to be profitable. I [attempted] to create at The Tribune the same kind of collegial environment that’s been so successful in everything else we’ve done. But it takes two to tango.” But Zell didn’t stop at calling his former employees uncooperative and ungrateful. He also had this to: “In my experience, newspaper people are at least as greedy as anybody else, and any perception to the contrary is perpetuated by the media itself.”