Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and eight other major daily newspapers, announced today that it is changing its name to—wait for it—tronc.
The name is, well, an incredibly strange choice, and is meant to be a diminutive of "tribune online content." The move comes after a Tribune Publishing shareholder meeting on Thursday that's drawn a lot of buzz since Gannett (parent company of USA Today) offered to purchase the company in cash at a 99 percent premium—an offer that was met by a war of words between the Virginia-based media giant and Tribune Publishing's non-executive chairman Michael Ferro. The rebranding suggests the deal is all but dead in the water.
Ferro, who is the former chairman and CEO of Wrapports (the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Reader), became Tribune Publishing's largest shareholder in February, and shortly later ousted the company's former CEO Jack Griffin and replaced him with longtime confidant Justin Dearborn.
tronc, in case you're wondering, will begin trading on the NASDAQ on June 20, and will be a "content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels," according to the press release from the company.
“Our industry requires an innovative approach and a fundamentally different way of operating," Ferro said in the statement. "Our transformation strategy—which has attracted over $114 million in growth capital—is focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the user experience and better monetize our world-class content in order to deliver personalized content to our 60 million monthly users and drive value for all of our stakeholders."
But what's more important than the implications that the move will have on newsrooms and publications across the country is how the internet reacted to the completely ridiculous name. The face of journalism might be changing, but at least everyone's able to laugh about it.
“who do you work for”
— Whet Moser (@whet) June 2, 2016
“tronc”
“what?”
“tronc”
“gesundheit"
TRONC DOWN FOR WHAT. https://t.co/RuFrnEasKj
— Sam Sifton (@SamSifton) June 2, 2016
"TRONC TRONC" is how Law and Order starts, right?
— Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) June 2, 2016
What does "tronc" make you think of?
— Andrew Huff (@me3dia) June 2, 2016
It's important that we find out which agency came up with "tronc" so we all know who to never, ever work with
— Alastair Coote (@_alastair) June 2, 2016
tronc, in one gif pic.twitter.com/z1pS2oYLL7
— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) June 2, 2016
Check out Tribune Publishing's sick new corporate logo pic.twitter.com/cMEpq47Cx8
— Liam Stack (@liamstack) June 2, 2016
tronc! pic.twitter.com/CI3pCMP6JZ
— Joe Ruppel (@ruppelsive) June 2, 2016
Lotta junk in the #tronc today pic.twitter.com/cRteCfKCY3
— david parrish (@dparrishcbs2) June 2, 2016
The good news is, tronc is probably troncing on troncer. Or trending on Twitter. Or something.
— Frank Sennett (@SennettReport) June 2, 2016
There were people that have more money than I ever will in a room together, and they all agreed that "Tronc" was the name to go with.
— dan sinker (@dansinker) June 2, 2016
tronc walk in the boardroom like: pic.twitter.com/rOyheExu4j
— Dustin Park (@dustbag44) June 2, 2016
HOLD THE TRUNK
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) June 2, 2016
HOLD THR TRUNK
HOLD TRUNK
TRONC
'tronc' sounds like a drunk person saying 'drunk.'
— Julie DiCaro (@JulieDiCaro) June 2, 2016
Go home, Tribune. You're tronc.
— Brian Fung (@b_fung) June 2, 2016
"Finalist names before they settled on tronc:
— Poynter (@Poynter) June 2, 2016
-bramp
-flirp
-scormf
-ker-chonk"https://t.co/JTHoQB6x9y pic.twitter.com/ra3xxgIcRO
tfw you realize you now work for Tronc pic.twitter.com/7z0bhg84AJ
— Seth Fiegerman (@sfiegerman) June 2, 2016
tronc if you love journalism!
— Naheed Mustafa (@NaheedMustafa) June 2, 2016
Make America tronc Again
— Sarcasmorator (@Sarcasmorator) June 2, 2016
New York's hottest club is #tronc. pic.twitter.com/VTvg3CsZFf
— Melanie Johnson (@melogna) June 2, 2016