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 The
big question for British Jews when the Telegraph
changed hands in 2004 was whether the new owners,
the Barclay brothers, would be as friendly towards
Israel and the Zionist cause as Lord
Black.
 - London, April 20, 2007
A
yiddishe revolution in America's media
Some
of the most Waspy papers in the US have just been
acquired by the most Jewish of
publishers
NOT so long ago, the
very idea of the Tribune Company, owner of the
Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and
the Los Angeles Times falling into Jewish
ownership would have looked preposterous. The
New York Times and Washington Post may
glory in their Jewish antecedents. But the
Tribune, the creation of the Anglophobe
colonel Robert McCormick, an
American-firster who thought the Nazis were
Europe's problem, not America's, was despised in
Jewish households.
The colonel loathed the wartime US
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he
viewed as being in cahoots with the British and a
traitor to his social class. In McCormick's view,
FDR was unsound because he was in thrall to the
Jews. Now, after a very public auction, the Tribune
Company has fallen into the hands of a very Jewish
entrepreneur, Sam Zell, described by the
American Jewish paper The Forward as a
"billionaire boychik".
At the state-of-the-art Washington
bureau of the main titles, the reporters in their
gleaming steel work pods regard the arrival of Zell
as the second coming. Uncertainty is the enemy of
newspapers and ever since the Tribune group was put
on the block, there has been nervousness about new
ownership.
Zell, described by Forbes
magazine as the 52nd-richest man in America, is as
Jewish as you can get. The son of Polish refugees
from the Shoah, he attends a traditional synagogue
regularly, is a big donor to Israeli- and Jewish
causes and made most of his money in property. But
unlike many Jewish philanthropists, he shows little
interest in associating with the rich and the
great, eschews the idea of having his name
plastered across donated buildings, and at the age
of 65 years he still prefers denim to Brooks
Brothers.
Even though Zell is a neophyte when
it comes to the press, he has eased concerns with
plans for an employee shareholder ownership plan
which would give workers a stake in the enterprise
and incentivise them to "deliver the goods".
In the financial world, Zell, whose
original family name was Zielonka, is known
as the "grave dancer" because of his success in
picking up burnt-out businesses, cutting costs,
fixing them up and turning them around.
It might have been thought that the
Tribune company -- which aside from its main
newspaper titles also owns 25 television stations,
the Chicago Cubs baseball team and its historic
ground, Wrigley Field -- is hardly the kind of
burnt-out business in which Zell specialises. But
most American big-city newspapers are currently
regarded as in the emergency ward.
Circulations even for emblematic
titles like the Los Angeles Times have been
tumbling, advertising revenues are under pressure
from the Internet and the magic pill of making
online news and information pay is still a long way
off. The days when the Chandler family, founders of
the LA Times, ruled over California's media
have gone. The family, which dominated California's
power elites, sold the paper to the Tribune in
2000, ending a 120-year association.
This title, like the Chicago
Tribune, was also known for its trditional,
preppie background and its disdain for Hollywood
and things Jewish.
Yet in many ways, the LA Times
ought to be the jewel in the crown of Tribune. It
ranks alongside the Washington Post and
New York Times in the annals of quality
journalism in the United States. Its reputation
began to suffer when it became part of a media
conglomerate, losing the special edge which comes
with local ownership.
Indeed, it is thought that Zell could
recover some of his investment rapidly were he to
sell the paper on to another Jewish tycoon, the
movie and record producer David Geffen, one
of the founders of Dreamworks with Steven
Spielberg.
The scenario is favoured by some of
the paper's workforce. Geffen is much more of a
political figure than Zell, having been an early
supporter of Bill Clinton. More recently, he
raised $1.3 million (£650,000) for Democratic
presidential contender Barack Obama at a
star-studded Hollywood fundraiser.
Were Geffen to acquire the LA
Times, it would be a transformational deal.
The big question for British Jews
when the Telegraph changed hands in 2004 was
whether the new owners, the Barclay brothers, would
be as friendly towards Israel and the Zionist cause
as Lord Black. Among British media, which
are often hard on Israel, the Black
Telegraph had been a
beacon of fairness. The US media are very
different. They generally start from the point of
view that Israel is a good thing, an exemplar of
democracy in a crazy part of the world and,
crucially, an important strategic ally of the
United States.
Yet the histories of the Chicago
Tribune, banned from many Jewish households
over the decades, and the LA Times have been
very different, despite the large Jewish
populations in their respective cities. Ownership
by Zell and possibly by Geffen, if the LA
Times is disposed of, would be likely to change
the complexion of the papers.
Zell and Geffen may not be
traditional newspaper proprietors, but both are
overtly Jewish and pro-Israel. They would bring a
different perspective to the previous American
first-owning families, whose culture still lingers
on the fringes.
Zell insists he will leave journalism
to those who know about it. But newspaper
proprietors always find it hard to keep their hands
out of the cookie jar.
Alex Brummer is City Editor of The
Daily Mail
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