On a week where there hasn't been any real news about the reported potential sale of Newsday by Tribune and billionaire owner Sam Zell, there still has been lots of talk about it.
The latest is a column by Jon Fine online in Business Week. Eons ago, Fine was a freelance columnist for Newsday (in the late 1990s). Now he laments the opportunity that Times Mirror let go by when it pulled the plug on New York Newsday in 1995. This is more in the school of Newsday could-have-been-a-contenda.
As the wheel has turned, says Fine, one of the competitive targets of New York Newsday--Rupert Murdoch and the New York Post--could now swallow Newsday. His column has a memorable, and intelligent, line about Murdoch: "The best place to be in America with a newspaper is to have one that Rupert Murdoch wants," an industry executive tells him. What this means is that Murdoch's presence in any bidding war raises up the price, and this will help Zell with his debt headache. Stay tuned.
--Noel Rubinton