Zell, Rupert Talk About Outsourcing

Wall St. Journal Printing
By E&P Staff Published:
February 11, 2008 10:00 AM ET

CHICAGO, On the heels of Tribune Co. flagship Chicago Tribune's announcement that it was canceling contracts to print its Midwest edition out of town, comes a report that Chairman Sam Zell has talked with new Dow Jones & Co. proprietor Rupert Murdoch about outsourcing the printing of The Wall Street Journal to Tribune papers in Florida and Los Angeles. At a meeting last week with Los Angeles Times employees, Zell reportedly discussed his conversation with the News Corp. chairman about moving production of the southern Florida and southern California editions of the Journal from Dow Jones-owned plants to the Orlando Sentinel or South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Florida, and the Los Angeles Times in California. In November, before Zell completed the $8.2 billion deal to take Tribune private, the Journal reported he had talked with Murdoch about a deal to print jointly Tribune's Newsday on Long Island, N.Y., and News Corp.'s New York Post.