sam Zell

When Barnes & Noble announced it was looking for a buyer, we entertained the fanciful notion that struggling rival Borders might put in a bid. As absurd as the idea was, that buyout offer has been made. Here's why it has virtually no chance of succeeding.

Tribune Co. creditors are suing for billions of dollars in damages, alleging Tribune Chairman Sam Zell and lender JPMorgan Chase pushed the company into bankruptcy when Zell purchased it mainly with debt in 2007.

So much for the hope of a relatively quick and painless exit from bankruptcy for Tribune Co. A reorganization plan that would have turned over control of the Chicago-based media conglomerate to lenders has reportedly fallen apart.

Tribune Co.'s Chief Executive Randy Michaels has some interesting ideas on how to remake the 163-year-old news company, including television news without anchors. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Michaels is said to be "rethinking" Tribune's business interests, including "reducing...

Sorry, Tribune Co. employees. After everything you've been through in the past two years, you won't get to witness the one thing that might, in some small way, make up for it -- the spectacle of Sam Zell getting fired as CEO. He removed himself from the post, and he's staying on as chairman.

When an $8-billion company goes bankrupt, it's tempting to find someone to blame -- and all the more so when that company is headed by someone as rude, crass and personally unappealing as Sam Zell. Now the foundering media conglomerate's bondholders are targeting Zell, along with the investment...

Give Sam Zell this much credit: He didn't fail small. The wee Tribune Co. chairman is fond of loud talk and outsize gestures and in the media world, he'll be remembered for a very big move: His hyper-leveraged takeover of a struggling newspaper and TV conglomerate, and the almost immediate descent...

"Tribune Co. employee claims sexual harassment": As shocking headlines go, that's right up there with "Dog bites man." What else do you expect at a company that make lewd jokes about a female executive in a press release? Shelly Sindland, a political reporter for WTIC-TV (a.k.a. Fox 61) in...

You don't hear too many good pieces of news coming out of Tribune Co. these days, but here's one: The bankrupt media conglomerate has finally reached a long-overdue deal to sell the Chicago Cubs. The sale, reportedly at a price of around $900 million, will help Tribune pay down some of the towering...

That popping sound you hear issuing from newsrooms around the country? It's the sound of thousands of champagne bottles being opened to toast the news that Sam Zell may be about to lose control of Tribune Co. (TRBCQ). The crass, flashy Chicago real-estate mogul has been the newspaper industry's...