Media Industry

As chairman of the far-flung Hollinger newspaper empire, the tall, silver-haired, magnificently tailored Conrad Black reigned supreme as one of the world's most powerful media moguls. His lifestyle included $60,000-plus birthday parties for his wife, dinners with the rich and famous and jaw-dropping renovations of a Park Avenue apartment. Black, however, will spend much of this spring in a federal courtroom in Chicago facing charges that he scammed Hollinger International Inc.

In a posh suite in a swanky hotel above Los Angeles, hip-hop artist Lil Jon jerks a controller to a video game, manipulating an image of himself. The on-screen Lil Jon is seen fighting to Lil Jon music and wearing a Lil Jon brand T-shirt and characteristic dreadlocks.

What kind of a news baron would Sam Zell make? With Tribune Co. seriously considering the Chicago real estate billionaire's buyout offer, it's no idle question. Besides amassing the nation's largest collection of office buildings in his Equity Office Properties Trust -- which was sold last month to Blackstone Group for $23 billion -- Zell, 65, has a long history with smokestack industries, having invested in makers of bicycles, barges, mattresses and airplane rivets.

The former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, who pleaded guilty to mail fraud and turned into a prosecution witness against fallen media tycoon Conrad Black, has agreed to pay $28.7 million to settle civil fraud charges, federal regulators said. David Radler, who was deputy chairman and chief operating officer of Black's Hollinger International Inc., will pay a $5-million civil fine and $23.

Commie Girl consorting with Republican lawyers? That's one of the odd side effects of last week's announcement that former OC Weekly publisher Will Swaim would launch a new alternative paper in Long Beach. Swaim quit OC Weekly six weeks ago, citing philosophical differences with the renegade paper's new owner, Phoenix-based Village Voice Media, formerly New Times. An exodus of writers and editors followed, throwing OC Weekly into turmoil. Even the paper's two interns quit.

As creator of "L.A. Law" and "Hill Street Blues," Steven Bochco packed lots of drama into 60 minutes. Now he's trying to entertain in closer to 60 seconds. Bochco is joining the masses of wannabe online video moguls with "Cafe Confidential," an Internet series that's all about brevity and punch. The 44-clip collection, which premieres today on video site Metacafe, features people in their teens or 20s telling lighthearted, semi-confessional stories.

The latest brouhaha over alleged copyright infringement on the Internet has pitted some of the biggest names in corporate America against each other: Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone versus Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. But you'd be wise to keep your eyes on two other guys who, in a small way, are helping to transform the media landscape: Christopher Allan Smith and Ryan Neisz.

For months, former New York Post scribe Jared Paul Stern was at the center of unseemly accusations that he tried to shake down billionaire Ronald Burkle in exchange for good press in the newspaper's gossip pages. Now Stern has fired back in a lawsuit filed Thursday against Burkle, the Post's archrival Daily News and even former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), whom Stern accuses of attacking him in an effort to suppress negative stories about themselves.

Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell has become the leading suitor for Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times and KTLA Channel 5, with an $8-billion bid for a company buffeted by new-media challengers, a person familiar with the talks said. Investment bankers are working to strike a deal, but many details remain to be ironed out. The company may not be able to meet its self-imposed deadline to conclude deliberations by the end of the month, the person said.

Federal approval Tuesday of the $12.3-billion sale of Univision Communications Inc. to a group of private investors was just the first hurdle for the new owners of the country's largest Spanish-language media company.