The Blog DoggerSam Zell: The most hated man in the blogosphere

Bloggers blame Tribune Co. owner, Sam Zell, for the company’s bankruptcy. Is this the death knell for newspapers?

It was appropriate that the fog in Chicago Tuesday was so thick it blotted from view the Tribune Tower, home of the now bankrupt Tribune Co. and its chief, Sam Zell.

In the blogosphere, however, there is no cover or fog for Zell and his management team—“shock jocks,” as veteran media executive Alan D. Mutter put it—as bloggers heap much of the blame for bankruptcy onto them.

“Fixing the Tribune would be a tall order for any management team, but it already has proven to be well beyond the capabilities of the incumbents,” Mutter wrote on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur. “The Zellistas have terrorized the company through successive layoffs and pointless vindictive tirades.”

Mutter is among countless bloggers dragging Zell over the coals. Numerous blogs have claimed the Tribune Co.’s 20,000 employees are taking this bankruptcy on the chin.