CEO Jack Griffin's 18 - month redo, post - Tribune split from its mothership, Tribune Company, in mid-2014 was only the latest
twist since Sam Zell took control of the company in late December, 2007, performing a clean sweep of top Tribune management, installing his own people and then entering the
famed five - year bankruptcy from hell (David Carr's 2010 nail - in - the - coffin column: «
At Flagging Tribune, Tales of a Bankrupt Culture»).