{"id":11142,"date":"2016-04-21T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=11142"},"modified":"2016-04-21T10:54:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T15:54:48","slug":"michael-ferro-weaves-tangled-media-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2016\/04\/21\/michael-ferro-weaves-tangled-media-web\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Ferro's media web gets more tangled"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michael<\/a>

<\/a> Michael W. Ferro Jr.<\/p><\/div>\n

Michael W. Ferro Jr., the tech entrepreneur who says he\u2019s out to \u201csave journalism,\u201d<\/a> sits atop a growing Chicago media empire that encompasses the Chicago Tribune,<\/a> RedEye Chicago,<\/a> Chicago magazine<\/a> and a string of 38 suburban daily and weekly newspapers stretching from Aurora to Waukegan to Gary, Indiana, among other publications and websites.<\/p>\n

Rarely has one person held so much sway over so many Chicago area mastheads.<\/p>\n

To avoid \u201cperceived conflicts of interest,\u201d Ferro announced last month that he had turned over his 40 percent financial stake in Wrapports, the company that owns the Sun-Times<\/a> and the Chicago Reader<\/a>, to a charitable trust.<\/p>\n

But as Crain\u2019s Chicago Business<\/a> has pointed out repeatedly, he\u2019s never identified the charity. \u201cIt is a completely new charitable trust at a very large organization,\u201d Ferro said in a Tribune interview.<\/a>\u00a0Sounding a bit like Donald Trump, he added: \u201cIt's a very big organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet those perceived conflicts of interest persist. As chairman of Tribune Publishing since early February, Ferro hasn\u2019t quite kept his hands off Wrapports.<\/p>\n

Six weeks ago he lured away<\/a> Susanna Homan, the publisher and general manager of the Wrapports-owned weekly supplement Splash, <\/a>to become editor-in-chief and publisher of Chicago magazine (kicking esteemed editor<\/a> Beth Fenner to the curb). Earlier this week he followed up by buying<\/a> Splash and reinstating Homan as editor and publisher of that magazine too. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

More significantly, Ferro has never disavowed ambitions to take back the Sun-Times and combine its ownership with the Tribune if he can get around antitrust issues. On the contrary, he said in the Tribune interview: \u201cI do see that someday, and why not?\u201d<\/p>\n

A filing<\/a> Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission shed additional light on Ferro\u2019s intertwined media interests. Among the highlights:<\/p>\n