It's been pretty big news that real estate magnate Sam Zell has won the bidding for Tribune Co., the nation's second-largest newspaper company with titles including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun.

The question, of course, is what is the company's future under Zell?

Jason Calacanis, on his calacanis.com blog, has some thoughts on this -- and they're not terribly comforting if you happen to be a Tribune Co. employee. He begins with a Zell quote from a recent Washington Post story:

Sam Zell is going to lose billions on newspapers and the Washington Post has no idea what they're talking about.

I just read this quote from an interview with Sam Zell, the real-estate billionaire who paid billions for a bunch of newspapers, and who apparently has no idea how Google works.

Witness this quote:

* "If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Zell said during the question period after his speech. "Not very."

Ummm.... exactly the same--and Google doesn't steal anyone's content. Zell's statement is so wrong on so many levels that you have to wonder if this guy has any idea what he bought, not to mention if the reporters at the Washington Post have any reporting skills and knowledge of the Internet.

It's worth reading Jason's full post on this. He does make a compelling point, in his typical straight-ahead style.

I'm not so concerned about The Washington Post's reporting here, but rather the future of Tribune Co. I spent a number of years living in Los Angeles, and I remember the LA Times as a great newspaper, which appears to have fallen victim to an overemphasis of EPS vs. quality journalism under its Tribune Co. owners. This has been a longstanding criticism of Tribune Co., and thus new ownership brings with it the possibility of rebirth and great journalism once again.

However, if the new Tribune Co. views the online community as a threat and digs in its heels to preserve the old newsprint-and-ink model, I fear it is doomed.

Jason concludes:

Frankly, many newspapers deserve to die. If they can't adapt who cares--a new group of publications and communication devices will rise and fill the void.

Perhaps true. But we'll lose a lot of great reporters and editors along the way, many of whom would be mentors to the next generation of journalists -- the very journalists who must help us make sense of an increasingly complicated, fast-moving world.

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