Chandler Family

The 4-month-old auction of Tribune Co. appeared to be limping toward today's bidding deadline with several potential buyers on the sidelines and the California family that promoted a sale or breakup unsure whether to respond with an offer. The Chandler family, the previous owner of the Los Angeles Times, is the largest single shareholder of Tribune, the Chicago-based company that owns The Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Cubs baseball team and various other media properties.

"Book reviews in newspapers, well, those are gone," the young Web entrepreneur told me in the most matter-of-fact way. "Independent bookstores are almost gone. Chains will probably be gone soon. It's all happening online now. " That might have been ho-hum stuff coming from just any techie. But the pronouncements were being made by a descendent of a print-and-ink empire. Otis Chandler made no apologies. His great-great-great-grandfather may have founded the Los Angeles Times.

An offer for Tribune Co. by two Los Angeles billionaires would not require significant cuts at the company's newspapers, contrary to initial criticism of the debt-heavy proposal, people close to the transaction said Thursday. The bid by Eli Broad and Ron Burkle was one of two competing bids that emerged Wednesday for the Chicago-based company, just hours before a bidding deadline.

When I was a young pup at the Los Angeles Times, every once in a while a buzz would go around the newsroom and everyone would run to a corner window overlooking 2nd Street to catch a glimpse of Otis Chandler emerging from whatever absurdly cool car he was driving back then. I wasn't around for the glory days when Otis was the paper's groundbreaking publisher.

The sniping over the future of Tribune Co. escalated Thursday as the media conglomerate's independent directors responded to this week's scathing attack on the company by the former owners of the Los Angeles Times. The directors denounced as "untrue" and "unfounded" the Chandler family's allegations -- leveled in a regulatory filing Wednesday -- that Tribune's board acted rashly in launching a $2-billion stock buyback now underway.

After more than 120 years, the Chandlers are getting out of the newspaper business. The much-celebrated and maligned family that once dominated the civic, cultural and political life of Southern California through its control of the Los Angeles Times agreed Monday to sell its entire stake in Tribune Co., the newspaper's parent.

For a book about the development of Los Angeles, and the role played in that development by the Otis-Chandler family from 1881 to the present, I would appreciate hearing from anyone who either worked for, or had contact with, the Chandler family. LAWRENCE S. DIETZ 840 Pine St. Santa Monica, Calif. 90405

For years, Chandler family lawyer William Stinehart Jr. has played the invisible front man. One person who served with Stinehart as a director of Chandler-controlled Times Mirror Co., the former owner of the Los Angeles Times, couldn't recall him. The executive, who requested anonymity, drew a blank even after viewing a photograph of Stinehart. People who have been in meetings with the Los Angeles tax lawyer confirm that he's taciturn. Former Times Senior Vice President Jeffrey S.

In 1995, Jeffrey Chandler decided to break with tradition and expose a family schism. A member of the large, extended and very private family that owned the Los Angeles Times, he had come to believe that the newspaper had become far too liberal under the control of his cousin, Otis Chandler. It was time for The Times to return to its conservative roots, Chandler and his sister, Corinne Werdel, told Forbes magazine. "We have the inmates running the asylum," Werdel said.

Shares of Times Mirror Co. advanced in heavy trading Wednesday amid speculation that the diversified media conglomerate would be the target of a leveraged buyout. Los Angeles-based Times Mirror--which owns The Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and other media properties--issued a statement declaring that "the company has no knowledge of any corporate development that would explain the unusual trading activity in its stock."

With a four-page regulatory footnote to a history touching three centuries, the Chandlers have bowed out. The Southern California family that has been associated with the Los Angeles Times for 120 years severed its ties by selling 20.4 million shares of Tribune Co. stock to Wall Street's Goldman Sachs & Co., the family said in a regulatory filing Wednesday. The stock was sold for $31.19 a share, or $634.8 million, in a transaction that closes today.

The Chandler family moved closer Monday to cutting its historic ties to the newspaper industry, with three representatives of the family trusts resigning from Tribune Co.'s board of directors. Jeffrey Chandler, Roger Goodan and William Stinehart Jr. resigned as directors, the Chicago-based media company said, marking the end of the family's role on the board. The Chandlers became a leading shareholder of Tribune in 2000, when the family sold its controlling stake in Times Mirror Co.

After more than 120 years, the Chandlers are getting out of the newspaper business. The much-celebrated and maligned family that once dominated the civic, cultural and political life of Southern California through its control of the Los Angeles Times agreed Monday to sell its entire stake in Tribune Co., the newspaper's parent.

When the battle for control of Tribune Co. got underway more than eight months ago, investors hoped that a sagging share price would be bolstered as bidders assessed the true value of marquee assets such as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

Tribune Co.'s largest shareholder, Chandler Trusts, has extended the deadline on an offer for the media conglomerate that had been set to expire Wednesday, a person close to the family said. The move gives the company's board of directors more time to consider the highest-valued bid for its assets to date during a four-month review process. The Chandlers, whose complaints last year about Tribune's sagging stock price prompted the company to solicit outside proposals, made an estimated $7.

An offer for Tribune Co. by two Los Angeles billionaires would not require significant cuts at the company's newspapers, contrary to initial criticism of the debt-heavy proposal, people close to the transaction said Thursday. The bid by Eli Broad and Ron Burkle was one of two competing bids that emerged Wednesday for the Chicago-based company, just hours before a bidding deadline.

Times Mirror Sued Over Cable Plan: Times Mirror Co., publisher of the Los Angeles Times, has been sued by at least three shareholders over its plan to spin off its cable television operations. The lawsuits claim that the plan, which would merge Times Mirror's cable operations with those of Cox Cable Communications in a $2.3-billion deal, would unfairly favor members of the founding Chandler family, who own 55% of the company's voting stock.

When the aging patriarch of a Southern California newspaper empire learns about his son-in-law's mistress, he beckons him and parcels out this advice: "If you're going to sleep around, get yourself a hooker, for God's sake. Be discreet." The real-life Chandler newspaper dynasty unknowingly inspired "Pasadena," Fox's new drama about the Greeley family, which spends its days publishing the Los Angeles Sun and its nights battling demons, lust and malice.

The Chandler family, which owned the Los Angeles Times for more than a century, and a partnership of local billionaires Eli Broad and Ron Burkle made competing offers Wednesday for Chicago-based media giant Tribune Co. After a four-month auction process, the bids pit two powerful Southern California interests in a battle for the company that owns The Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

The 4-month-old auction of Tribune Co. appeared to be limping toward today's bidding deadline with several potential buyers on the sidelines and the California family that promoted a sale or breakup unsure whether to respond with an offer. The Chandler family, the previous owner of the Los Angeles Times, is the largest single shareholder of Tribune, the Chicago-based company that owns The Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Cubs baseball team and various other media properties.