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Never a dull moment....
- Chicago Tribune publisher Scott Smith says he'll retire, calling it time for Zell and Randy Michaels to bring in their own
morning deejay"new leadership." Romenesko - The anonymous L.A. Times staffer who blogs at TellZell.com actually does the numbers and finds that the average LAT staffer produces more copy than the average Hartford Courant staffer, not that that's any measure of productivity.
- There was a lot of Zell and Michaels derision — A LOT — last night at the Stanley and Betty Sheinbaum party for ex-Times reporter and columnist Robert Scheer's new book, "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America." Scheer talked about the sensitive, difficult stories that previous Times owners and publishers backed. They got a hand, while Zell was bad-mouthed all around. The party also feted the book by former LAT editor Narda Zacchino (Scheer's wife) and Mary Tillman, "Boots on the Ground by Dusk : My Tribute to Pat Tillman."
- American Journalism Review editor Rem Rieder posts online that "Nothing could showcase more vividly how little Zell and his peeps know about the newspaper business."
- Content Bridges blogger Ken Doctor says "LAT Madness is Brand Suicide...I'd like to read the Los Angeles Times manual on 'how to deal with difficult situations.'"
- Former LAT reporter Ken Reich praises Harold Meyerson's column and skewers the Zell regime and Times editor Russ Stanton at his blog Take Back the Times.
- The Chicago Tribune launched a humor blog with a video that makes fun of the newspaper, to a degree. Editor & Publisher