Updated: -It’s not over ‘til it’s over, as the Chicago Sun-Times is saying a contract is close, but it’s nothing has been signed and sealed yet, meaning the Reuters item was a bit premature. The official word comes from Tribune rep Gary Weitman, who said that the company’s still in…

Struggling newspaper companies Tribune Company and AH Belo (NYSE: AHC) (NYSE: BLC) are teaming up to sell national print and online ads, Tribune subsidiary LAT reported. Under the arrangement, the LAT and the Chicago Tribune will now be able to sell ads for AH Belo’s Dallas Morning News, and vice…

Loss of control is almost always a risk when debt is reorganized and Tribune Co.‘s trip to bankruptcy court could cost Sam Zell just that. According to one early-stage scenario laid out by the Chicago Tribune‘s Michael Oneal, creditors holding $8.6 billion in senior debt could wind up with control…

News Corp (NYSE: NWS). chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch was looking very casual as he dropped in for an interview to discuss the future of newspapers on the company’s FOX Business Network. In addition to predicting that the public will begin to embrace newspapers on e-readers in the next two…

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating Tribune Company’s ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), which was a key part of Sam Zell’s plan to take the company private two years ago. The use of the ESOP plan has also drawn a lawsuit from employees as well as an investigation by the…

The Chicago Tribune will introduce a new website adjunct in June called Chicago Now that has a lot of various elements: there’s social media and a blog aspect, along with e-commerce right along with general news, and even advertorial, E&P Pub’s Mark Fitzgerald reports. In describing this farrago, Fitzgerald’s item…

The Chicago Tribune has cut 53 newsroom jobs, paper’s Phil Rosenthal reported (via Romenesko). While certainly not good news for the staffers at the bankrupt Tribune Company’s flagship, it isn’t the 20 percent that   others reported last week. Following the layoffs, The Trib still has a 430-person newsroom. In…

The bleeding isn’t stopping at the Chicago Tribune, as Crains Chicago Business reports that (via E&P) the paper told employees last week that the newsroom would lose another 20 percent of its staff. The news comes as the Labor Department has opened an inquiry into the way bankrupt parent The…

Tribune Company’s ESOP (employee stock option plan), which was a major component in Sam Zell’s purchase of the publisher two years ago, has drawn a subpoena from the Department of Labor. Citing a bankruptcy court filing, WSJ notes that Labor Dept. is examining aspects of the ESOP under provisions in…

—LAT’s large front page ad draws protests from editorial staff: About 100 staffers at the struggling Tribune Company paper have petitioned LAT Publisher Eddy Hartenstein “strenuously” objecting to a large front page ad for the new NBC cop show Southland. The ad includes a column that resembles a news article.…

Here we go again. Another major content creator is threatening to sue internet companies after years of having them nip at its heels by repurposing or stealing sizeable chunks of its proprietary content. In considering the challenges that the Associated Press faces in its new quest to go after sites…

Organized labor dominates the ranks of newspaper publishing like no other industry, except for perhaps Detroit’s automakers. And like the car companies, newspaper managers’ hands are tied when it comes to cutting salaries and right-sizing staffs, as union contracts negotiated in flush times remain in place. Lately, some newspapers have…

Back in 2007, when Sam Zell was swooping in to buy the Tribune Company, Eli Broad was mentioned as a possible last-minute bidder for its flagship paper, the Los Angeles Times. Now, as Tribune files for bankruptcy, the billionaire founder of KB Homes and SunAmerica is talking again about a…

Tribune, still in the middle of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, has expanded into something new, for a change: it has formed an online “entertainment news bureau” that that will provide original, multimedia content to the company’s newspaper and TV websites. The bureau will merge the resources of Los Angeles…

Tribune Company’s Los Angeles Times just keeps on cutting. On its third round of layoffs in less than six months, LAT is cutting 300 positions and putting the separate local coverage into the print daily’s main section,  Publisher Eddy Hartenstein wrote in a staff memo on the LATimes’ blog (via…

Desperate to free up much-needed cash as the newspaper business struggles onward, the New York Times Co (NYSE: NYT). and Tribune Company are close to selling some ancillary—if expensive—assets. —NYTCo’s sale-leaseback deal in the works: The NYTCo’s week began with the completion of the much-anticipated $250 million loan from Mexican…

Newspapers in general and cable company Liberty Media (NSDQ: LINTA) come out mostly negative in credit-rating agency Fitch’s first Media & Entertainment Quarterly Report (PDF, free registration req.). In addressing specific concerns about The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), which saw its stock hit an all-time low in Q4, Fitch cites…

—CBS makes NYT’s front page (in an ad): Trying to stave of further ad revenue declines, the NYT has accepted its first display ad on the front page of the print edition from CBS (NYSE: CBS). The ad, which is two-and-a-half inches high, runs below the fold across the bottom…

Another sign of how newspapers and other media outlets are trying to change models in tough times ... In one of the highest-profile examples of news sharing between major media, the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post have agreed to share some sports and Maryland coverage. Both papers have been…