Randy Michaels — the Tribune Company’s embattled chief executive — is expected to resign this week in the wake of a New York Times report detailing “frat boy” behavior in the executive suite, according to reports by two Tribune Co.-owned newspapers.
According to the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, Michaels (pictured) will be replaced “by a four-member office of the president,” including L.A. Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein, Chicago Tribune Media Group president Tony Hunter, Tribune Co. chief investment officer Nils Larsen and chief restructuring officer Don Liebentritt.
On Tuesday, the Tribune Company board met to discuss Michaels’ future, but the widely-expected announcement of his resignation never came.
“Tribune’s board of directors is focused on filing the company’s plan of reorganization this Friday and has no comment on any other issue,” the board said in a statement Tuesday.
"Many of you asked for a statement today or last night,” Gary Weitman, SVP of corporate relations, wrote in a separate memo to reporters. “We’ll have no other comment on today’s board meeting."
"I work here today and I'm still working," Michaels himself said on Tuesday.
Lee Abrams — the Tribune Co. chief innovation offer — resigned last week in the wake of a scandal involving an e-mail he sent to his staff containing a link to an NC-17 Onion video.
Abrams was first suspended by Michaels. He tendered his resignation to Michaels on Friday.
The Abrams e-mail fiasco came just a week after a scathing, 4,000-plus word Times article outlined the frat-boy culture existing among senior Tribune executives. In it, Times media columnist David Carr painted the Tribune’s executive suite as a boozy, bumbling frat house, with Michaels, in one bizarre scene, offering $100 to a waitress to show him her breasts in front of a number of senior employees.
