Letter to Sam Zell

BW media writer Jon Fine offers some advice for the new press baron - stuff like cutting more deals with Dean Singleton and Brian Tierney (“as much partnering with each—printing, distribution, you name it—as is legally possible”). He also thinks Tribune should form a huge internal advertising agency in Los Angeles for its TV, newspaper and Web site components (granted, it brings up the dreaded S-word - synergy - but without the Chicago boys messing things up it might actually work). Most important, Fine writes, is to come up with fresh ideas in an industry still populated by Neanderthals. Well, not to be outdone, the folks at NY magazine's Daily Intelligencer came up with their own, slightly more irreverent list. Among the suggestions:

--Dump your wife of many years and immediately marry a much younger, much more Asian version.

--Pit your children against one another in a battle to become your heir apparent, in which none have any hope of winning.

--Get anointed as a member of the Order of Letters or Knights of the Garter from a foreign nation. Then insist upon being called "Lord."

--Pick a nemesis, preferably one whose company is already weakening. Then attack!