Journalism. Why won’t anyone pay for it? If only you kids with your iPods weren’t so selfish.
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — Tribune Co. won court approval to pay as much as $42.5 million in incentive bonuses to 640 managers of the bankrupt newspaper publisher.
The recipients, who include television-station managers and newspaper executives, will split a bonus pool that will be based on Tribune’s operating cash flow at the end of the year. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin J. Carey approved the bonuses today in Wilmington, Delaware.
The bonuses are “critically important to maintain proper incentives for the management team,” Tribune said in a court filing dated Aug. 30.
Tribune expects to end the year with $517 million in cash, Brian J. Gold, a company attorney, said in court. That means executives would split from $26.4 million to $32.4 million, according to the plan. They would split $42.5 million should Tribune reach $700 million in operating cash flow.
Jesus tits, BUCKY could run a newspaper with that amount of money, and he has no thumbs.
A.
The Tribune Co. has, what, two major newspapers and a television station, or thereabouts. 640 managers, all in the bonus stream?
Jesus H. Christ on the half-shell! 640 managers. Wanna know why they went bankrupt? There’s a friggin’ clue, for starters.
montag: There is a club. We are not in it.
I’m tempted to say that this would be like the White Star Line handing out safety bonuses in 1912, but thanks to Bochephus, the country has already hit our hyperbolic and inappropriate analogy quota for the week.
Of course bonuses are not necessary for the people who actually do the work.
The Tribune Co. has, what, two major newspapers and a television station, or thereabouts. 640 managers, all in the bonus stream?
In limited fairness to TribCo, they’ve got about 20some TV stations, and five (give or take) major papers (Trib, LAT, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant). So I can kind of see the 640 managers. Or at least a lot of them, I guess.
My pick for biggest outrage of the bankruptcy? Mark Willes–who was CEO of Times Mirror before TribCo bought them in 2000–is STILL getting paid millions of dollars out of his golden parachute. No joke, he’s one of the big “creditors.” That’s many, many hires every year getting spent on a guy who hasn’t worked for the company in a decade. It’s insane.
Well, what we all need to figure out is that there are TWO kinds of capitalism in America:
One for us: in which we’re expected to dedicate our lives and souls to the Masters of the Universe, are expected to be on he job 14/7, work till we die, and where we face the consequences if we “don’t measure up.”
One for them: in which the system is rigged so that no mater how stupid they are, or how bad they fuck up, they always come out on top.
Thanks, Ronald Reagan!
Bucky is, however, smarter than the malakas at the Trib.
proper manger incentives. funny the bottom workers don’t get incentives.
40 mill divided equally among 640 managers is 62 k each. Not that their total pay is 62k, but that their Bonus, in addition to whatever their salary is, is 62k. Can I naively assume that their salaries as managers is in line with the workers?
And I assume that like any animal, Bucky is greedy and protects what he thinks is his. But he still knows when he has what he needs and his stomach is full.