Why on earth would Tribune Co. want to compete with Apple?

One of the stranger stories this morning has the bankrupt parent of the LAT and Chicago Tribune developing a tablet that would either be given away or sold at a deep discount to anyone taking out a newspaper subscription (presumably committing to a long-term arrangement). On its face, this idea makes next to no sense, not just because Tribune has been a financial basket case for several years but because it would be entering a market that continues to be dominated by Apple's iPad. From Tom Krazit:

If a media company manages to be the first to convince people to actually use an Android tablet, then an entire consumer electronics industry should hang its head in shame. Luckily for them, this is never going to happen, as the chances of getting the public to carry around multiple tablets--one for the local news and one that does everything else about 10,000 times better than the local news tablet--are about as good as the Chicago Cubs, formerly owned by the Tribune, have winning of the World Series this year.