Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell isn’t just planning to rename Wrigley Field, he’s planning to rename his (gasp!) entire media empire ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc.
April Fools!
The first few paragraphs of a press release
announcing this “rebranding” got me – only for a few seconds, I swear – this morning. Sleep easy, Tribune Co. is still Tribune Co., Tribune Tower is still Tribune Tower, and Wrigley Field is still Wrigley Field - at least for the time being.
The April Fools' Day spoof of Zell’s
antics might draw the ire of many in the newspaper industry, who will surely accuse Zell and the other Trib brass of fiddling with the corporate Web site while print journalism burns.
But there’s another side to the story. Reporters and editors
told PRWeek last month that the one way to avoid the chopping block in this less-than-journalist-friendly day and age is to show off unconventional multimedia skills. Helping to recast the Tribune Co. Web site with a “debt-o-meter” and pictures of household pets could count toward building that idea, could it not?