Michael Eisner running to the Tribune Company, the man in charge of the Los Angeles Times? That seems to be the word – and, actually, it does make perfect sense. After all, more than most companies what does a newspaper need to thrive? A visionary leader. And more than most leaders with experience running an intellectual-property company, what does Michael Eisner have but vision?
I should know -- in my nefarious career, I happened to have worked for both the L.A. Times and Michael Eisner. Perhaps more than most I have some insight into each’s strength and weaknesses. In fact, I can hardly think of any downsides.
When I came to L.A. in the early ‘80s, the Times was at its peak. The largest paper in the nation (by circulation), under legendary publisher Otis Chandler it had ambitions to become an international paper of record, like the New York Times. The downside was, as the saying went, you could find out anything that happened in the world the day before, from Cairo to Karachi, Toronto to Tokyo … but you couldn’t find any news about the three-alarm fire that had swallowed up a factory down the street from your house!
Worse, because it was so fat with ads, for journalists it became “the golden coffin” -- the place good journalists went to die. One writer I knew had a contract for $150,000 per year (when that was a lot of money) for four stories per annum!
On the flip side, I remember my friend Randy Harvey got an offer from the Times. I asked how many words he had in his typewriter (we still used typewriters then). When he looked at me quizzically, I reminded him that at the Times, they didn’t so much as “edit” your stories as shovel them into type, always calling out for another paragraph or two to fill out a column.
I pictured Randy in two or three years, a burnt-out hulk lying by the side of the freeway begging passersby for more words. Oh, please, just one more word, kind sir….
(Fortunately, Randy, a hearty Texan, not only survived but thrived, rising to associate editor of the paper, number four on the masthead.)
My own experience with the Times began in New York. While I was at Newsweek, I had published a piece in the august New York Times’ Sunday Magazine. By that time Chandler had retired, leaving the editorship a seemingly revolving bank of editors, one of whom happened to be another friend of mine from the Newsweek days, Shelby Coffey. When Shelby saw my piece in the New York Times, he quickly summoned me (I had moved to California) and demanded to know how I could be writing for that hated rival when I lived right here in Tinsel Town! Thus began years of sporadic contributions to everything from Life & Style (remember that?) to Sports, etc.
