Maybe business acumen isn’t a one-size-fits-all skill. Sam Zell was extremely successful in real estate, but his 2007 purchase of Tribune Company failed to keep the organization from filing for bankruptcy a year later. In fact, creditors want to sue Zell for what they say is his role in the company’s financial failure. This news follows rumors that former CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner, could be on tap to manage the Tribune. And so it goes—from one corporate honcho to another: Do investors and financial whizzes have what it takes to run traditional news companies and take them into a new, profit-making era? 

We talk to Dan Gruber to learn more about corporate investment in the news business. He teaches at both the Medill School of Journalism and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Music Button:  Midwest Product, “Still Love in the Midwest”, from the CD Specifics, (Ghostly International)