Hasta La Creative!

Tribune Company, the largest employee-owned media company in the nation, today announced it has changed its name to ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc. or ZCMEINC. Zell, who made a fortune in real estate before deciding he’d like to dabble in an industry completely unfamiliar to him, announced the change in his record-setting 437th email to exhausted employees this year.

“Hell, I put $315 million into this thing, and we’re on the hook for $13 billion — the least I ought to get is my name on the company’s stationery,” said Zell, who remains chairman and CEO of the newly named enterprise.

Picking up on the news. The Wall Street Journal notes that Tribune’s corporate Web site, www.tribune.com, has been temporarily replaced with a version including a running “DEBToMETER,” a “TipJar” labeled “Hey buddy, help a paper out?” and a rotating sequence of dog photographs—a wink, perhaps, at a controversy Mr. Zell stoked by uttering an obscenity at a staffer who suggested that the push for profit would replace serious journalism with puppy photos.