Message From David Hiller - Publisher LAT

From: Hiller, David
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 8:45 AM
Subject: Big News

Folks,

By now you’ve seen Dennis’ email announcing the plans to take Tribune Company private in a transaction with a new ESOP and investor Sam Zell, valuing the company at $34 per share.

There is a huge amount for us to talk about in understanding the transaction, and what it means for shareholders, employees, and our customers. I think the plan is fundamentally a very good thing. It delivers a lot of value to shareholders, including employees who have a lot tied up in TRB stock; it takes the company out of the day-to-day short-term focus of Wall Street; it fully protects existing retirement benefits, and creates good new plans going forward.

Here’s this week’s plan for talking through and communicating about this:

There will be a satellite Town Hall meeting with Dennis from Chicago at 11 a.m. today. We will meet in the Chandler Auditorium. If you can’t be there (or fit in), the broadcast will also be playing on the internal TV monitors here and also in meeting rooms at Oly, OC and CCN. There will also be a webcast of Dennis’ presentation available thru Triblink (http://events.streamlogics.net/tribune/april2007/index.asp). We will follow on with our own discussion and Q&A in the auditorium after the satellite broadcast (with an audio connection to our other meeting areas).

We will repeat the Town Hall meeting at 5 p.m. in the Chandler Auditorium, and I will try to get around to see those of you at our other locations later this week. You can also expect more information to come out over the next few days and as soon as we hear anything new, we’ll get it out via email and TimesLink.

If you have any questions or comments, I encourage you to reply here or email them to Amber Avines (amber.avines@latimes.com), so as many as possible can be addressed during those meetings.

Our mission is the same today as it was yesterday — continue to aggressively reinvent our organization as the indispensable, dynamic and round-the-clock destination for differentiated news and information for Southern Californians, wherever, however, and whenever they need it.

See you later today.

David

Source: Russ Newton