Chicago blogger and veteran media critic Rob Feder has posted a column with photos of CEO Randy Michaels and other Tribune Company executives holding a poker party in the palatial Tribune Tower office that once belonged to the company’s patriarch, Col. Robert McCormick. The pics had been posted on Facebook by one participant, but subsequently removed.
“We pretty much desecrated it with gambling, booze and cigars. Good thing we know the guy who runs the building!” Feder quoted from the Facebook posting of John D. Phillips, the Tribune Tower building manager.
Among those identified in the photos with Michaels were Lee Abrams, Tribune Company Sr. VP and Chief Innovation Officer, Tribune Interactive President Marc Chase and WGN-AM Chicago Program Director Kevin Metheny – all well known names in radio circles.
It’s not specified when the event occurred, but Feder wrote that the photos on Phillips’ Facebook page were dated June 17, 2009. Both men and women employees appear in the photos playing poker at several tables.
Comments left on Feder’s blog, hosted by Chicago Public Radio’s Vocalo.org, range from criticism of the “clowns” running the heritage of a great company into the ground to one who said “Feder – you’ve finally gone off the deep end,” and added, “Last I checked, the Trib Tower is not a church.”
RBR-TVBR observation: What, no strippers? Randy has gotten so conservative in his old age.
