Billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell, who miraculously held control of the Tribune Co. with a miniscule equity stake, has taken the firm into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. How much blame should he shoulder for the crisis?

From Richard Siklos, writing in the Globe and Mail:

The argument against Mr. Zell: Journalists, by nature, are not likely to be endeared by someone who has dubbed himself "the grave dancer," who seemed to have little regard for journalism and journalists, and who relied heavily on radio industry hacks. I was wary at the time of his initial investment in Tribune, because I felt that he wasn't straight up about his role in the company: Press releases played up the employee ownership angle, but you had to plumb through securities filings to understand that Mr. Zell would essentially control the company through a series of vetoes without owning any of its equity. The only people whose votes counted in the Tribune buyout were those of the company's former shareholders who approved it - employees had no say over whether they wanted the ESOP, nor any role in overseeing the company once it was taken private.

It also wasn't particularly reassuring that, after saying he had no plan to sell any of the company's papers, he swiftly unloaded Newsday. All of this led to a sense that buying Tribune was a bit of sport for a restless billionaire looking for a new challenge. Mr. Zell paid a lot of lip service to running a "non-business" as a business. During his brief time in charge, there was plenty of asset-selling, cost-cutting and cosmetic revamping at his papers, but little clear evidence of improving the company's products.

The argument for Mr. Zell: There's a long tradition of media bosses who are not always politic but who lead successful news organizations - think Ted Turner at CNN, or even Rupert Murdoch in his stewardship so far of The Wall Street Journal. (Conrad Black, the now-incarcerated former press baron, used to openly ridicule the journalistic profession despite owning hundreds of papers.)

So don't penalize Mr. Zell too much for being rich and eccentric. As for the structure of the deal, it's worth remembering that the ESOP is something that was created expressly for the buyout, and it doesn't directly impact any pre-existing employee pensions or benefit obligations. So, yes, the ESOP as it exists today could get wiped out, but given that the deal only closed last December, it's not as though the employees had anything to show for their phantom "ownership" anyway. From their perspective, failing now is almost certainly better than failing later.

The one thing that can't be disputed is Mr. Zell's contention that the advertising market has collapsed far more quickly and deeply than he or anyone else in these businesses predicted a year ago. At least Mr. Zell was willing to try to fix the company - which is more than you can say for Tribune's well-compensated former managers or the Chandler family, whose frustration with said managers forced the company's sale.