Is It Gonna Be A Tribune World?

Fresh off the Pulp transom, a Tribune e-mail announcing a new online "entertainment bureau." What strikes me about it: 9 million unique users. That is a lot. I can't decide if this thing will go down in flames or, as Marc Chase puts it, "show the world the power of Tribune's reach and content."...

By Bob Norman

February 6, 2009

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Fresh off the Pulp transom, a Tribune e-mail announcing a new online "entertainment bureau." What strikes me about it: 9 million unique users. That is a lot. I can't decide if this thing will go down in flames or, as Marc Chase puts it, "show the world the power of Tribune's reach and content."

-------------------------------------------------

From: Tribune Communications

Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 2:33 PM
Subject: Message from Marc Chase/Online Entertainment Bureau

Given everything going on around the company, you may have missed yesterday's press release announcing the launch of Tribune's Online Entertainment Bureau (a copy of the release is attached). This is a really big deal. Using the combined resources of the Los Angeles Times and Zap2it, as well as content from across our newspapers, TV stations and web sites, we intend to make this outlet the go-to national source for entertainment news on the web.

And we have some great people leading the effort at the Los Angeles Times and Zap2it:

Richard Rushfield, the entertainment editor at The Times, will also serve as director/national entertainment programming at "The Syndicate," TI's new online marketplace. Richard will coordinate entertainment coverage among all our web sites.
Joseph Kapsch, who's currently executive producer/entertainment at latimes.com, has been named editorial director at Zap2it and will oversee the redesign of the site into a national entertainment portal.

I also want to thank all the folks at The Times, Zap2it, and TI who have been working so hard to get this project off the ground.

The new bureau will serve a combined online audience of about 9 million unique visitors at the start, and we intend to blow that number away very quickly. This is a great opportunity to show the world the power of Tribune's reach and content and we will make the most of it.

Marc

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Journalist Bob Norman has been raking the muck of South Florida for the past 25 years. His work has led to criminal cases against corrupt politicians, the ouster of bad judges from the bench, and has garnered dozens of state, regional, and national awards.

Contact: Bob Norman