Thank You, Sam Zell

Who would think that the most promising businessman in my industry is a real estate mogul who has the nickname the "Grave Dancer"? (Which, by the way, he bestowed upon himself, making it even lamer in the way that all self-coined nicknames are.) It comes from his great delight in buying undervalued assets -- or "other people's mistakes," as he wrote -- and then turning big profits from them. Newspapers seem to fit the category these days and luckily the GD, also one of the country's wealthiest men, thinks so too.

Well, thank you, Mr. Sam Zell, now executive chairman of the Tribune Co., for having a fairly optimistic opinion of the newspaper business. Welcome aboard! Read here about what he said the day he took it over earlier this month. Most encouraging: "I’m sick and tired of listening to everybody talk about and commiserate about the end of newspapers,” he said. “They ain’t ended. And they’re not going to be." (He just needs a good copy editor, which any of the company's papers could provide. Or, if he's worth $6 billion-plus, maybe he doesn't need one and can use "ain't" whenever he wants.)

And read here about he actually wants to expand the Tribune's revenues, instead of cutting expenses over and over, to make it financially healthy again. How shocking: You mean, the long-term future of the newspaper business, any business, is growing it, not cutting its staff until the content, what it delivers to the customers, is so bare that it's no longer an impressive product and no one wants to buy it anymore? Wow, genius.

I even like his beard: It seems like I could run into him taking a nice shteam at a gym or something. Nice Jewish boy, too. (OK, maybe not so nice: real estate moguls rarely are "nice," though the New Yorker profile -- linked to above -- didn't make him out to be a total asshole.)

The way he structured the deal is a little lame, though. He only put up $315 million of his own money (as a loan to the company) of the $8.2 billion takeover -- about 4 percent of the total. Meanwhile, employees are the owners of Tribune now, through an ESOP. Never good to own part of your company, though: When it goes under, which is possible, the lenders, such as Zell, are first in line for repayment while the equity-holders lose their investment. (See Enron.) Damn straight he better be optimistic about newspapers under this arrangement!