AllThingsD » Chicago Tribune

800,000 Doctors Warned About Stolen Personal Information

Jacob Goldstein — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:06:49 +0000

Hey, docs: Someone stole your data.

The Blue Cross Blue and Blue Shield Association is warning about 800,000 doctors (nearly every practicing physician in the country) that a laptop containing some of their personal information was stolen, the Chicago Tribune reports.

No patient information was stored on the computer. But the database does include the social security numbers of more than 100,000 of the docs. The database also contains addresses and other information.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

BoomTown Asks "Ask Amy" for Some Web Advice

Kara Swisher — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:53:38 +0000

Several years ago, my longtime friend and colleague Amy Dickinson suddenly became, well, Ann Landers.

Well, not exactly Ann herself, as that would be weird–but she took over the famous syndicated advice column in the Chicago Tribune, which changed the name to “Ask Amy.”

So, BoomTown did just that on my recent visit to Chicago, interviewing Dickinson about what questions she gets about the Internet from readers.

While they now mostly send her emails instead of letters seeking help for their troubles and tribulations, the problems still are mostly about relationships, jobs and similar issues.

But, as the Web insinuates itself into people’s lives, there are also sticky situations galore, digitally speaking. To friend or not to friend, for example, that is the question.

Dickinson gets a lot of questions about Facebook and social networking, in fact, and uses a lot of such tools herself, including Twitter.

In other words, this is not your grandmother’s advice columnist!

Here’s the video interview I did (and you should also click this link to learn more about a marvelous new book by Dickinson called “The Mighty Queens of Freeville,” a memoir about raising her daughter as a single mother with a little analog help from her family and friends):

[ See post to watch video ]

Two Newspaper Properties Not for Sale: Tribune Real Estate in Chicago, Los Angeles

Peter Kafka — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:38:38 +0000

Sam Zell’s Tribune Co., last seen entering Chapter 11, is in fire sale mode. But you can only have a fire sale if someone’s buying what you’re selling. Which is why the media company has pulled two of its biggest real estate holdings off the block. Crain’s:

Tribune Co. has scrapped plans to put the Tribune Tower up for sale because of cratering real estate prices and the company’s late-year bankruptcy protection filing.

The media giant hired brokers last summer to sell the landmark tower as well as the Los Angeles Times’ headquarters complex, known as Times Mirror Square, and had hoped to get marketing materials to prospective investors early this year. But the moribund real estate investment sales market prompted the company to shelve those plans, says Stephanie Pater, Tribune’s director of real estate.”

Easy to see why prospective buyers might be wary of taking on close to a million square feet of office space when the primary tenant is a newspaper with uncertain prospects.

So what does that mean for the New York Times Co.’s (NYT) effort to wring much needed cash out of its HQ? The company announced its plans to raise up to $225 million via a sale-leaseback of its Times Square building in early December. But we haven’t heard a peep about it since.

No news to report so far, says spokeswoman Catherine Mathis, via email. “There’s no update. We continue to actively pursue a sale-leaseback on our new headquarters.”

So. Anyone interested? The Times has up to 828,000 square feet to dispose of, according to the company’s latest 10-K.

[Image Credit: sheliaellen]

Tribune Co. Headed for Chapter 11?

Peter Kafka — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:14:55 +0000

One of the country’s biggest newspapers may be headed for bankruptcy court.

Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and a host of other media properties, has hired the Lazard investment bank and law firm Sidley Austin to try to stave off a Chapter 11 filing, both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report. But that may not be enough: The WSJ says owner Sam Zell, who took on some $8 billion in debt to buy the company last year, is preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing “as soon as this week.”

Tribune’s problems are well documented and are similar to every other newspaper–including the New York Times (NYT), as well as papers owned by News Corp. (NWS), which also owns this Web site, as ad dollars, revenue and readers are all moving rapidly to the Web. In addition, Tribune is particularly debt-laden: It owes $1 billion in interest payments this year, has another $500 million payment due next June, and may already be violating debt covenants that limit the amount of money it can borrow.

Tribune tends to receive special attention from us media types because of the size of the company and the prominence of its publications, but also because Sam Zell gives good quote. He’s generated plenty of them since he bought the company, and most of them come back to the same theme: He bought the newspapers to make a profit, not because he’s enamored of newspapers. And he holds a visible contempt for journalists who worry about the future of journalism.

Here’s a sampling:

Zell at Quadrangle’s kind-of-off-the-record FourSquare gathering earlier this fall:

If you don’t want to be a charitable trust, then you’ve got to focus on producing a return for investors’ capital, and it’s just that simple. It worked in the old days because you could be a public trust and you could do well for your shareholders because you had a monopoly, and monopolies are wonderful. I mean, I think competition is terrific, particularly for all those guys out there. Me? I like monopolies. I’m just sorry I waited 60 years to get into the newspaper industry because the 40 I missed were great.”

And here’s Zell addressing the staff of his Orlando Sentinel in January 2008. Warning–one bit of colorful muttering at the very end of this: