Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and a host of other media properties, has hired the Lazard investment bank and law firm Sidley Austin to try to stave off a Chapter 11 filing, both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report. But that may not be enough: The WSJ says owner Sam Zell, who took on some $8 billion in debt to buy the company last year, is preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing “as soon as this week.”

Tribune’s problems are well documented and are similar to every other newspaper–including the New York Times (NYT), as well as papers owned by News Corp. (NWS), which also owns this Web site, as ad dollars, revenue and readers are all moving rapidly to the Web. In addition, Tribune is particularly debt-laden: It owes $1 billion in interest payments this year, has another $500 million payment due next June, and may already be violating debt covenants that limit the amount of money it can borrow.

Tribune tends to receive special attention from us media types because of the size of the company and the prominence of its publications, but also because Sam Zell gives good quote. He’s generated plenty of them since he bought the company, and most of them come back to the same theme: He bought the newspapers to make a profit, not because he’s enamored of newspapers. And he holds a visible contempt for journalists who worry about the future of journalism.

Here’s a sampling:

Zell at Quadrangle’s kind-of-off-the-record FourSquare gathering earlier this fall:

If you don’t want to be a charitable trust, then you’ve got to focus on producing a return for investors’ capital, and it’s just that simple. It worked in the old days because you could be a public trust and you could do well for your shareholders because you had a monopoly, and monopolies are wonderful. I mean, I think competition is terrific, particularly for all those guys out there. Me? I like monopolies. I’m just sorry I waited 60 years to get into the newspaper industry because the 40 I missed were great.”

And here’s Zell addressing the staff of his Orlando Sentinel in January 2008. Warning–one bit of colorful muttering at the very end of this:

Portfolio.com media blogger Jeff Bercovici posted a short item about one of the panels yesterday afternoon; later that evening, the story had disappeared.

It should never have run in the first place, Portfolio.com managing editor Daniel Colarusso tells me. That’s because Portfolio magazine was a sponsor of the event (editor in chief Joanne Lipman moderated one panel; Washington editor Matt Cooper moderated the one that Bercovici wrote about) and is honoring its no-press rules.

Again, it’s Quadrangle’s conference, and they can run it however they’d like. But it seems particularly ironic that the one story that did get published, then pulled, was about a panel of professional communicators: CBS (CBS) news anchor Katie Couric, NBC anchor Brian Williams and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Some MediaMemo readers have asked me to reprint all of Bercovici’s story, but I don’t have access to it. I can tell you, however, that is a very short story–maybe three or four paragraphs long–and that the text I quoted yesterday was the most interesting part. Here it is again:

Couric shed some light on her preparation for the interviews: Beforehand, she sought advice from former senator Sam Nunn and Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas. They told her to draw Palin out on her geopolitical worldview and urged her to let the governor speak at length without interrupting her. Maybe she should bring them along with her when she takes over at Meet the Press?”

Meanwhile, Quadrangle really has bigger problems on its mind these days than unauthorized blog posts. It is shutting down its media hedge fund after sustaining losses of 25 percent year-to-date.

So who said what at Quadrangle’s Foursquare conference, and was any of it interesting?

You got me. The media and tech confab is off the record. And so far, the members of the fourth estate who attended the event yesterday seem to be keeping their mouths shut.

But I did talk briefly with an attendee, who told me that the most interesting panel was the one that Portfolio’s Matt Cooper conducted this afternoon with television personalities Katie Couric, Brian Williams and George Stephanopoulos.

That would be an interesting group under any circumstance, but even more so since Couric’s interview of Republican VP candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin for CBS (CBS) is now considered to be a turning point in the 2008 election.

And while Couric hasn’t talked publicly about the interviews yet, she apparently did dish a bit today, according to a source who talked to Portfolio.com’s Jeff Bercovici:

Couric shed some light on her preparation for the interviews: Beforehand, she sought advice from former senator Sam Nunn and Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas. They told her to draw Palin out on her geopolitical worldview and urged her to let the governor speak at length without interrupting her. Maybe she should bring them along with her when she takes over at Meet the Press?”

UPDATE: Bercovici’s report has been pulled. Details here.

One newsworthy item not covered in Bercovici’s account: After the event, Couric gave Twitter correspondent MC Hammer a smooch, which was apparently well-received.

Earlier today I was grousing about not getting into the big-deal Quadrangle Foursquare conference, and suggested that I might park myself in the Plaza hotel’s lobby, in the hopes of meeting some of the boldfaced names at the event.

Couldn’t make it (never-ending layoffs news to write about, but maybe tomorrow).

So for now, I’m making do by following the Twitter stream for 80s icon/entrepreneur MC Hammer, who did get an invite. (Thanks for the tip, Tim Geisenheimer.)

Alas, Hammer may be a better dancer than he is a writer. Or maybe he just hasn’t figured out the best way to use Twitter. In any event, I don’t think I’m getting the full flavor of the conference:

Can anyone else suggest other conference attendees who are Tweeting (or otherwise communicating) about the event? Send me an email at peter@allthingsd.com or leave a comment below.

And who knows? Maybe John Chambers, Steve Ballmer and Brian Roberts will indeed say something important today and tomorrow at Quadrangle’s Foursquare conference. Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli is speaking too. He might have something newsworthy to say.

But you are unlikely to read about it.

That’s because there’s no press allowed at the private equity shop’s annual conference, which starts this afternoon at New York’s Plaza Hotel.

Or rather, there’s some press at the event. But they’ll be on stage. And they won’t be telling their readers and listeners what they saw and heard.

CNBC’s David Faber, Becky Quick and Maria Bartiromo, for instance, will be moderating panels over the next few days. So will the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin. And network TV news bigshots Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos and Brian Williams will answer questions themselves (Portfolio’s Matt Cooper will be moderating that one).

Am I crabby because I asked (nicely) and couldn’t get in myself? Nah. It’s Quadrangle’s event, and they can run it any way they want. But it does look like a pretty good gathering of worthies. Maybe I’ll park myself in the Plaza’s lobby and see if I can bump into some of them.

Want to join me? Here’s the agenda for next two days:

Tuesday 11/11
2:00 PM WELCOME
Joshua L. Steiner (Quadrangle)

ONE ON ONE WITH JOHN CHAMBERS (Cisco)
Moderated by Jim Citrin (Spencer Stuart)

WHO DO YOU TRUST: INFORMATION AND NEWS IN AN  OPEN WORLD
Tom Glocer (Thomson Reuters), Nancy McKinstry (Wolters Kluwer) and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook)
Moderated by David Faber (CNBC)

ALL ABOUT WIRELESS
Jean-Bernard Lévy (Vivendi), Naguib Sawiris (Orascom Telecom) and Ben Wolff (Clearwire)
Moderated by Steven Rattner

4:15 PM BREAK

GOING IT ALONE IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD
Philippe Dauman (Viacom), Charlie Ergen (EchoStar) and Robert Kotick (Activision)
Moderated by Becky Quick (CNBC)

GLOBAL E-COMMERCE: $500 BILLION AND GROWING
Barry Diller (IAC) and Hiroshi Mikitani (Rakuten)
Moderated by Steve Hasker (McKinsey)

6:15 PM COCKTAIL RECEPTION
Grand Ballroom Foyer
The Plaza

Wednesday 11/12
8:30 AM WELCOME
ONE ON ONE WITH STEVE BALLMER (Microsoft)
Moderated by Ken Auletta (The New Yorker)

INNOVATION AND THE NEXT BIG IDEA
Jean-François Decaux (JC Decaux) Robert Stephens (Geek Squad founder?) and Jim Wiatt (William Morris)
Moderated by Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times)

A CONVERSATION WITH SAM ZELL (Equity Group, Tribune Co.)
Moderated by Joanne Lipman (Portfolio)

10:00 AM BREAK

COOP-ER-TITION: A CONVERSATION WITH PETER CHERNIN (News Corp.) AND BRIAN ROBERTS (Comcast)
Moderated by Ken Auletta

REBUILDING A BRAND FROM THE TOP DOWN
Dan Hesse (Sprint) and Robert Nardelli (Chrysler)
Moderated by Maria Bartiromo

NOON Concluding Luncheon
CAMPAIGN 2008: IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA AND BEHIND THE SCENES
Katie Couric (CBS), George Stephanopoulos (ABC) and Brian Williams (NBC)
Moderated by Matt Cooper (Portfolio)

[Image Credit: PinkMoose]