[Bumped up for even greater visibility.]

*** UPDATE *** From Bruce Dold at the Chicago Tribune editorial board…

No one at the Tribune has ever tried to influence me or other members of the editorial board.

Mr. Dold insists that this blog post as originally written was somehow “defamatory.” I talked with Ms. Lipinski yesterday, after she told the New York Times that Sam Zell did appear to be attempting to influence her. She called late Thursday, but she did not want to be quoted or paraphrased and made it clear she didn’t want to gin up a new story. She did urge me to update my post. However, I wasn’t exactly sure how to do that without some sort of even deep background statement - for which I didn’t have permission.

However, to keep peace with the big boys, I will say that Ms. Lipinski was insistent yesterday that everybody on the Tribune edit board are honest folks who would never be swayed by the top dog.

I told Mr. Dold that I would print his response, so I did. And if he ever decides to respond to my other questions I will be more than happy post them as soon as I see them.

* Sam Zell allegedly tried to use the Tribune editorial board to further his own business interests…

In Chicago, Ms. Lipinski said, it became clear that Mr. Zell was not above using the newspaper as a tool for his other business interests. In June 2008, Mr. Zell approached her at a meeting, saying that The Chicago Tribune should be harder on Gov. Rod Blagojevich. She reminded him that the newspaper had aggressively investigated the governor and that its editorial page had already called for his resignation.

“Don’t be a p*ssy,” he told her. “You can always be harder on him.”

In a news meeting later the same day, she found out that Mr. Zell was in negotiations to sell Wrigley Field to the state sports authority.

“It was hard to avoid the conclusion that he was trying to use the newspaper to put pressure on Blagojevich.”

You would think that the editorial page would’ve come clean on this little escapade. Lipinksi was one of the saner members of that editorial board and widely respected. She told the New York Times that the Blagojevich episode led to her resignation. There’s been no coverage about why she left until now.

According to the surveillance tapes, Rod Blagojevich was attempting to cut a deal with Zell on Wrigley Field, but he wanted people fired from the edit board. The Tribune subsequently claimed that Zell exerted no influence at all on the board, but Lipinski clearly believes otherwise.

Keep in mind that the Tribune broke the story about Blagojevich being under FBI surveillance the Friday before he was arrested. Blagojevich used the intervening days to try to undo some of his alleged misdeeds. If not for that Tribune story, he might have gone through with it.

Crain’s published a story about the Tribune Company’s reaction, but it didn’t mention the explosive Blagojevich allegations buried deep within the New York Times front-page story.

Zell is no longer running day to day TribCo operations, but he remains the company’s chairman. His most recent contribution was to Bill Brady…

* Ironically enough, the Tribune published a laughable column today by Leonard Pitts…

But I don’t believe in citizen journalism because journalism — like any profession worthy of the name — has standards and ethics, and if you don’t sign on to those, I can no more trust you than I can a doctor who refused the Hippocratic oath or a lawyer who failed the bar exam.

Standards and ethics, eh? Stones. Glass houses. Etc.