Tribune Tower
World class editor’s note: from the Nieman Journalism Lab’s Ken Doctor
In a move that, even amid all the nastiness of the Tribune/Gannett war, we would still have to consider stunning, Tribune Publishing has renamed itself — to tronc. In a memo to Tribune staff this afternoon, CEO Justin Dearborn wrote:
Today, I am pleased to announce another important step in our transformation — the renaming of our Company to tronc, or tribune online content. At our core, we remain a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels. This rebranding acknowledges our important evolution as a company and captures the essence of our vision for the future.
Editor’s note: Because we do not hate our readers, Nieman Lab style from here on out will be a capitalized Tronc, no matter what the company insists — just as we have long killed the exclamation point in Yahoo and refused to render “Politico” in all caps, and just as we sliced out the old slash in Recode before that company came around to the same idea.
In a war of corporate naming, it’s apparently a race to the bottom. Tronc joins the two-year-old ex-Gannett broadcast company Tegna [or TEGNA! —Ed.] in the pantheon of odd corporate naming. Fast followers of the Tribune Publishing saga will recall that a month ago Tribune chairman Michael Ferro and his hand-picked CEO Justin Dearborn had outlined Tribune’s latest turnaround strategy around a Tronc “content monetization engine.” Now Tronc — a logo and an idea on a whiteboard — has swallowed Tribune itself. Tribunites become Troncites.
(click here to continue reading Tribune gets Troncked: A reader’s guide to the Tribune/Gannett war » Nieman Journalism Lab.)
Tronc is probably the most ridiculous name I’ve encountered in a while. I’m guessing Michael Ferro came up with it in a fever dream, but I could be wrong. Maybe they focus-grouped Tronc for 6 weeks, and this is the best the Tribune brain trust could come up with.