Hasta La Creative!

According to The New York Times, real estate tycoon, Samuel Zell, is shaking things up at The Tribune Company. After completing an $8.2 billion deal on Thursday that makes the media company a privately held operation, Zell made himself chief executive, announced a new set of directors and managers, and declared that the troubled company would look to raise revenue.

He disparaged the conventional wisdom that the newspaper industry — and the Tribune Company in particular — was suffering through a long, unavoidable contraction, and repeatedly stated that Tribune could increase its revenues.

“I’m sick and tired of listening to everybody talk about and commiserate about the end of newspapers,” he said. “They ain’t ended. And they’re not going to be.”

He said of Tribune, “I think it’s a very low-risk investment, but this wouldn’t be the first time that my opinion diverged from everybody else’s.”

“What this company needs is an owner,” he said later. “It needs someone who accepts the responsibility for what this company does.”

With an estimated net worth of $6 billion, Zell is the 52nd richest American as ranked by Forbes. He’s also a blast from the past—a time when newspapers were run by strong leaders, not by committee.