There does seem to be some sort of connection, in spirit, if not in wiretap goods, between Blagojevich and Zell. I’m not the only one to notice it:
But really, you know Blagojevich moved into an entirely different realm of awful when, as the Chicago Tribune reported in early November, his people called Tribune owner Sam Zell and demanded the firing of editorial board members in return for assistance in selling the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs.
…
There was no possibility of jeopardizing Fitzgerald’s investigation, because this story didn’t need it; the wiretap wasn’t involved: Blagojevich called them! 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.
When you walk into the lobby of the Tribune Tower, you’re dwarfed by the etched words of legends. They speak of the importance of journalism for a functioning democracy; of the imperative to speak truth to power. One, from Thomas Jefferson himself, reads “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that can not be limited without being lost.”
That lobby is for sale now. Zell wants to turn the building into condos.
[From Daniel Sinker: My Governor Got Lead Away in Handcuffs, and All I Got Was This Lousy Newspaper]
So why did the Chicago Tribune hold off on the story?
think about this: 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.
