Tell Zell: A Dear Eddy Letter

In response to my call for suggestions for new LA Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein, I received this thoughtful missive from William Lobdell, former Times religion writer, ex-newspaper executive, author and now blogger.

Dear Eddy Hartenstein,

As a devoted Direct TV customer, I feel a little strange to offering you business advice, but here goes.

Please, please, please, concentrate your efforts on the advertising and marketing departments at The Times. Everything flows from there.

Take a look at the pitiful amount of ads sold in the Sports/Olympic sections in the past 10 days. This readership is still incredibly strong, and selling advertising -- which would get strong response -- should be a no-brainer. But the pages for basically empty of advertisements -- something is very, very wrong here.

There's plenty to tune-up in the editorial product, but don't get distracted. If your salespeople can't sell the Sports section, they can't sell ANYTHING. Also, with revitalized advertising department, you'll have direction on what advertisers and readers want -- which will help guide the editorial product.

Despite what that idiot Lee Abrams (is it within your purview to fire him?) says, The Times' problem ultimately isn't the editorial product. It's a leaderless advertising department that is demoralized and doesn't have a clue how to sell in the new competitive media age. Fix that, and you'll fix The Times.

William Lobdell
Super devoted (unfortunately) former LA Times
employee, 1990-2008

P.S. Another short-cut on the learning curve:Tribune trained/promoted executives, for the most part, totally BLOW (you'll recognize them by their MBA mumbo-jumob). Move them aside and your job will be much easier.

Tell Zell: A Dear Eddy Letter