LOS ANGELES -- The mood here in reaction to the sale of The Los Angeles Times and its parent company to the Tribune Co. may have been best summed up by Mark Willes, the company's chairman, when he left the board meeting that approved the transaction late Sunday evening.
Willes burst into tears and wept openly, according to several people who saw him.The sale of the paper and its parent, the Times Mirror Co., would make Willes an immensely wealthy man. And it would earn tens of thousands of dollars, in some instances more, for each of the reporters, editors and many other employees of the Times Mirror Co. who hold stock and stock options.
But for many people in this city, both in The Los Angeles Times newsroom and outside, the deal felt humiliating, they said, like something precious had been stolen away.
"I think it's a tragedy," said Antonio Villaraigosa, the speaker of the state Assembly and a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, who has had his differences with the newspaper. "Even when you don't agree with their coverage or their editorials, they've been a booster to the city, just like the Tribune has been in Chicago. Will the new owner share that tradition?"
Many people said they believed the Tribune Co., based in Chicago, would give The Times great autonomy, as promised, and that the newspaper would remain the most influential publication in America's second largest city. Yet many also said the sale was a blow to something intangible but powerful, if badly battered: civic pride.
"There is a feeling that yesterday, a part of this city's soul was The Los Angeles Times," said Geoffrey Cowan, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. "I'm not sure how much that is true tomorrow."
He added, "There is a loss of identity."
Particularly painful was the fact that the sale was one in a string of events that have left many people here feeling diminished. In recent years, Los Angeles has lost its professional football teams. All its major banks have been bought by outsiders. And nearly all the big corporations have moved or been sold. On the occasion of the millennium celebrations, every major city in the world was represented with some spectacular event -- except for sputtering Los Angeles, which has no Times Square or Eiffel Tower, or even a geographic center to focus and display civic enthusiasm.
The mixed responses of the city's largest ethnic community, Hispanics, was characterized by Linda Griego, a former deputy mayor. "There has been a feeling that the paper has not been real balanced in covering our community, although it has been improving," Griego said. "It still has a ways to go. But from what I've seen the Tribune does a good job on these things in Chicago, so maybe this will bring some positives. Overall, though, this still feels like an institution that doesn't belong to us anymore."
Within the newsroom, reactions varied. Many people expressed anger that the Chandler family, which has controlled the company for decades, had sold the company to an outsider, in spite of reassurances in recent years that it never would. But some people expressed relief that the company would now be controlled by newspaper experts, rather than the marketing people with no journalism experience, like Willes, that the family had recruited in an effort to boost the stock price.
"The Chandler family long ago lost interest in running a newspaper and they're just interested in the profits," said Ken Reich, a columnist who has worked at The Los Angeles Times for 35 years. "Under the circumstances, selling to the Tribune is better than selling to Fox or something."
Reporters and editors in the Times newsroom received memos from top company officials Monday and were called to meetings to explain the deal -- although some said many questions, about job cuts, benefits and the like, went unanswered. Several people said a great deal of anger was being directed at the Chandler family, which, according to Willes, sold the company without even informing him until the discussions were well advanced.
In his memo to employees, Willes pointedly noted that the transaction had been initiated by the Chandler Trusts, which hold the family's majority voting interest, and he had said earlier that he only found out about the deal 10 days ago.