You're a newspaper. The governor of your state--a governor who has had the stink of corruption on him for years--has his people call you up and directly state that they'll help you out if you fire members of your editorial board. It is a phone conversation that not only wipes its ass on the ethical lines it crosses, it also treats the First Amendment like it's optional. And you don't report it? Why?
There's only one reason: Zell was entertaining the offer. . .
The Tribune could have and should have run the story of Blagojevich's call to Tribune Tower in 200 point type. They should have printed it in Rod's own blood. They would have brought down a sitting governor the same week that they were trumpeting the win of Obama. They would have pushed the Tribune's brand into the stratosphere, at just the time that it needed it.
But they didn't. Faced with a defining moment in journalism--this was the kind of story that we would have taught in journalism schools for years--Sam Zell decided not to do the right thing. It's not surprising--the guy is a waxed mustache away from tying a damsel in distress to a railroad track after all--but it's still a shock.
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