Scion offers ideas for Times

Bemoaning his extended family’s apparent unwillingness to “rescue” the Los Angeles Times from its corporate owner, the great-great-grandson of the newspaper’s founder is floating a proposal to put the paper in the hands of community owners.

Harry B. Chandler’s informal plan also calls for the paper to refocus on “must-read” local coverage and to consider offering “a la carte” service in which readers might get some features -- such as stock tables or comics -- only on demand.

His most unusual suggestion: that local citizens consider forming a community corporation to buy The Times, much like the ownership structure of pro football’s Green Bay Packers.

Chandler said his proposal was designed to “prompt discussion” and acknowledged that he had no direct power to push the ideas ahead. Still, his essay, to be published in Sunday’s Current section of The Times, adds another voice to the debate about the future of the paper, which Chandler contends has been left a mess by its corporate parent, Tribune Co. of Chicago.

Another member of the extended Chandler family -- which is the largest shareholder in Tribune -- disputed the suggestion that the family had no interest in The Times. There remains a possibility that the Chandlers might join with others in trying to buy the paper or all of Tribune, said the relative, who requested anonymity because the family had not authorized him to speak.

“A lot of things are still on the table,” the relative said. “The possibilities are still wide-open, and a lot of members of the family feel a significant connection to paper.”

This week the paper saw the departure of popular Editor Dean Baquet and the revelation that two Los Angeles billionaires, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, had bid for Tribune, following at least four earlier offers from investment firms.

It was pressure from the Chandler family, which holds about 20% of Tribune stock, that forced the media giant in September to consider a sale or breakup of the company.

Chandler, 53, is the son of Otis Chandler, the publisher who built The Times into a journalistic powerhouse during a 20-year tenure that ended in 1980. He is one of about 170 Chandler heirs whose holdings in family trusts include about $1.5 billion in Tribune stock.

Harry Chandler once worked for The Times overseeing new-business development and early ventures onto the Internet. He explained in a note to family members that he was frustrated that they had not done more to try to bolster the newspaper, which has suffered from the same flight of print readers and advertisers as have other big-city dailies.

“It has felt awful to be connected with this great newspaper for my whole life and now watch all these negative events unfold helplessly,” Chandler wrote in the attachment to his essay.

“So I have decided to go public with my thoughts about how we got to this place and some ideas of how to get out of this mess.”

Chandler said he worried that new owners might try to squeeze the paper’s operations even more to maximize profit. He also advised caution about advances by “some ego-driven entrepreneur with an agenda.”

Chandler explained that he recognized that type because the paper’s founder, Harrison Gray Otis, had been infamous for a “personal-pulpit” ownership, using the paper to advance his family and friends while punishing his enemies.

He put forward an alternative, suggesting that if 20% of Times readers invested $1,000 each, they could raise enough cash to buy the paper. Based on Sunday circulation of about 1 million, however, that would produce $200 million, about one-tenth of the estimated market value of the paper.

Chandler did not elaborate on where the rest of the money for such an unusual transaction would come from.

The Green Bay Packers are owned by more than 110,000 community shareholders, a protection against the team’s fleeing Wisconsin.

“I’ll write the first check for the Los Angeles Times Community Owners LLC,” Chandler wrote.

He acknowledged that his proposal would be controversial within his family and that some of his ideas would displease Times journalists and even his father, who died in February at 78.

Among his suggestions: consolidating Tribune’s foreign and national bureaus and focusing on local coverage -- a shift away from the kind of paper Otis Chandler built.

Tribune executives have taken a similar line, saying they are determined to emphasize local coverage because they say that is the area least inhabited by competition, where The Times can draw the most readers and advertisers.

Finding “must-read stories” around Southern California is more important than the paper’s pursuit of Pulitzer Prizes, Chandler wrote.

It’s not unusual for the large and far-flung family to disagree about its most valuable holding, The Times. Otis Chandler antagonized many with the paper’s center-left politics and with his depiction of other heirs as being penny-pinching enemies of good journalism.

The family member who spoke anonymously said other members of the family besides Otis Chandler’s descendants took pride in the paper and wanted to see it thrive.

“A lot of them want to see it be a responsible and strong voice to the Los Angeles community,” he said.

james.rainey@latimes.com