[Bumped up for visibility.]
* Oy…
A top executive at Tribune Co., parent of the Chicago Tribune, e-mailed a company-wide memo Monday that contained links to off-color satirical videos, including one he labeled “[Expletive deleted]” in which a gyrating woman appears to pour liquor on her bare breasts.
The note to employees in Chicago and elsewhere from Lee Abrams, Tribune Co.’s chief innovation officer, came less than a week after an unflattering New York Times front-page story characterized the Chicago-based media concern’s top management as fostering a poisonous, sexist “frat house” atmosphere.
Abrams’ memo spurred complaints to Tribune Co.’s human resources department from Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern and others, upset at the sexual content. Abrams was not immediately available for comment.
“I thought it was offensive and I thought it was completely inappropriate to be sent out in a workplace setting to everyone in this company,” Kern said Tuesday. “We’ve had some employees complain as well, and I took it to HR.” […]
“This is not the way it is at the Chicago Tribune and it is not the way it is in the newsroom, and the way you communicate that to people is by complaining about it and getting it stopped,” Kern said.
Way to destroy the brand, frat boys.
If the rest of the local media starts to pick up on these crazy stories, you have to wonder whether the coverage might impact the paper’s candidate endorsements. Probably not, but I still wonder.
*** UPDATE *** The frat boy apologized, but Robert Feder is absolutely right…
Granted, the Tribune has done a diligent job of covering the business and legal sides of its company’s epic bankruptcy, reporting on the chicanery that led to Zell’s “deal from hell” and the struggles to emerge with a settlement. But except for a few artfully worded posts on Rosenthal’s blog, the sordid reign of Michaels & Co. has been all but ignored by the World’s Greatest Newspaper and its numerous print and broadcast confederates.
Once Carr’s New York Times blockbuster hit, how did the Tribune respond? By circling the wagons at first and printing a ludicrous broadside from Michaels, who urged employees to “ignore the noise” and who sought to impugn the motives and reputation of the writer. (That’s standard operating procedure for Michaels, who tried to discredit my reporting on him earlier this year by labeling me “an out-of-work blogger” and someone who is “no longer paid to be in media.”)
The timidity of so many journalists at the Tribune, WGN-Channel 9 and WGN-AM (720) to speak out makes me admire Roger Ebert even more for the way in which he took on Conrad Black and David Radler, the two crooks who nearly ran the Sun-Times into the ground a few years ago. Or the way Carol Marin and Ron Magers confronted their NBC bosses at WMAQ-Channel 5 in the late ’90s. Or the way Mike Royko stood up to Rupert Murdoch when he took over the Sun-Times in the early ’80s. Who is their counterpart when Tribune Co. is in crisis? Colonel Tribune?
What’s ultimately at stake is the credibility and authority of the Tribune to exert its influence over all the other institutions it covers. In the aftermath of the New York Times piece last week, Kern posted a memo in which he extolled his newsroom’s “highest professional, ethical and moral standards.” Confronting Abrams on Tuesday was another step in the right direction. But I’m afraid both moves are too little, too late.
The editorial board never lets a day go by without telling somebody how to live their lives. A mirror might be handy.
- Pioneer P. - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 7:24 pm:
Alpha Sigma Sigman … Funny. Good lord, can you imagine another business where this wouldn’t get one in some serious trouble? This is Conrad Black without the aura of class.
- Excessively Rabid - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 7:34 pm:
Jeez, how long before an employee decides to litigate this?!? Where I come from, it would take five minutes.
- OneMan - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 7:41 pm:
Because nothing says “create a fun, non-linear creative environment” whatever that is than boobs and booze.
Then again it appears that Trib management is filled with boobs.
- Wumpus - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 7:46 pm:
what ever happened to the delete button.
- OneMan - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 7:56 pm:
Wumpus,
The problem was this wasn’t sent as a ‘look this is funny e-mail’ but as a work related you should look at this thing.
- (618) Democrat - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:07 pm:
A bankrupt company, a bankrupt editorial board bankrupt of ideas and out of touch with the voters of Illinois and now bankrupt morals.
No wonder the company is bankrupt!
- The Captain - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:15 pm:
This still isn’t as offensive as owning the Cubs.
- Geneseo Gent - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:21 pm:
Rich, Get the email and send it Wumpus and ask him to look at it and then see what he do if he had received it at work or home. JUST delete it? If so then please delete him.
- Mary Richards - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:22 pm:
“Oh, Misterrr Grant!!!!!!!!!”
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:28 pm:
Outraged columns by Kass, Zorn, Smich, and editorial by Dold, to follow, right?
Don’t hold your breath. They’re whipped; Zell already robbed them blind with the funky ESOP deal.
This sounds like a job for Dennis Byrne. He’ll spin it so it’s the fault of an Obama or a Madigan. Any old Obama or Madigan will do.
Maybe that old Trib payroller, Paul Lis, can set it right.
Trib Co. has been run by lightweights for years, even before Zell, but these guys are absurd.
- just sayin' - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:52 pm:
Where is John Kass and all the other holier than thou writers over there? Answer, they are all a bunch weaklings, afraid to stand up for the women there because they are too worried their mostly worthless journalism degrees won’t allow them to get another job in this economy.
John Kass’ next made up word should be something for sell out columnists who turn a blind eye to incredible wrongdoing and hostile behavior under their own roof.
Let’s all hope the class action lawsuit by the female employees that’s surely in the works will finally finish off this embarrassment of a company.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 8:55 pm:
Rich, Bruce Dold called. He thinks this post might be defamatory.
Wordslinger, Paul Lis? Well played sir.
I think this is all part of a very clever re-branding effort led by Abrams. I hear they’re going with “Page 3 Girls” instead of Kass right after the election.
- Living in Oklahoma - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 9:28 pm:
One Idiot can ruin a brand for an entire company of people. I don’t pretend to be “in the know” when it comes to the atmosphere in the Tribune newsroom, but it seems like alot of piling on is going on in this post. Fire the offender, apologize to the staff, move forward.
- Chicago Dem - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 9:28 pm:
More fallout from Sam Zell’s disastrous reign at the Trib.
- Living in Oklahoma - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 9:39 pm:
I read the entire article. Delete my last post, the tribune is not only in left field, they are some where outside the stadium.
- MrJM - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 9:48 pm:
When I was a kid, a distant cousin moved to the Big City. A short time later, she returned home a broken woman.
While she was away for a weekend, hooligans broke into her apartment and stole everything except for a single monstrous couch. The couch was apparently left behind because it was too big and unwieldy for the criminals to fit through the apartment’s narrow door. The thieves were simply unable to steal it.
So they took a dump on the couch.
And for some reason, the antics at the Tribune reminded of that old story.
– MrJM
- MrJM - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 9:58 pm:
Rich,
Update: Lee Abrams says he’s sorry and it’ll never happen again — http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=192530 — so everything at TribCo is all better now.
– MrJM
- Emily Booth - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 10:15 pm:
Barbarians inside the gate. The new Dark Ages.
- Piling on - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 11:16 pm:
You know what would really help about now?
A good ol Pat Collins-led panel to look into what’s wrong with the Tribune and then come up with a list of demands that, if not met, prove the company is run by the devil.
Where’s Change Illinois! when we need it?
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Oct 12, 10 @ 11:21 pm:
47, I came to know the dude as a young and relatively idealistic man. I have certainly never been as young or as idealistic since.
He was Big Heat for Trib. Co. and the Archdiocese of Chicago (Cardinals Cody and Bernardin), working out of the Trib’s corner office under the Dome.
He’d start popping Buds before 9 a.m., while the “reporters” and “bureau chief” would take his calls like secretaries (before cell phones, for you youngsters out there).
The word was he made his living delivering Trib endorsements for a price. From what I heard, it was a real good gig until one point it all went south, somehow related to a legendary incident where he got cold-cocked by Frank Savikas in the Tower.
Years later, I would see him every once in a while on Madison Street in Forest Park. One night, while listening to Moose Skowron tell baseball stories, he blurted out a remarkable tale on himself involving his date and his shock and surprise as to how he discovered “her” lovely head of hair was a wig.
I don’t think my jaw ever reset properly.
- Way Way Down Here - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 8:07 am:
Chief Innovation Officer???? Does that mean there are lesser innovation officers?
- SouthernIL - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 8:47 am:
Hey, I hear they have a spot open on “Saturday Night Live”!! Shoe fits, go for it!
- fedup dem - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 9:02 am:
Rich, if Bruce Dold does call to complain about your posting all of this, just tell him to start looking for a record store to manage; as a former college radio station jazz show producer that is more up his alley.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 10:04 am:
Feder’s on the story.
I assume the Beechwood Reporter will be on it again.
Even Gawker is on the story.
The Sun-Times, however, is barely covering it.
- 47th Ward - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 10:30 am:
Thanks for the flashback Wordslinger.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 10:35 am:
You get those, too? Misspent youth.
- just sayin' - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 10:57 am:
While all this is going on, John Kass (R - See No Evil) is writing about comfy chairs or some such nonsense.
- Amalia - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 11:42 am:
The Tribune lets some of this filter into the paper, and certainly all over the management, the Sun Times has a “Maxim” page in the sports section with E. Harris, who thinks we should endure his Playboy fantasies. grow up, all of you.
- sal-says - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 12:01 pm:
Great.
And his non-appology, he: apologized “to everyone who was offended” Wonder who might NOT have been offended?
So….if the story doesn’t grow legs; he’s off the hook, keeping his apparently easy-money job. If the story gets national attention, he can probably collect a bunch of money as severance & go pursue ‘other opportunities’.
At least the Trib didn’t prevent publicizing the story.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Oct 13, 10 @ 2:07 pm:
Romenesko reports Abrams has been suspended indefinitely. He has the memo from Michaels:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=192587