Tribune Publishing, the parent company that owns several storied and proud newspapers in the US including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, announced on Thursday that it would be changing its name to “tronc Inc.”
That’s with one lowercase t and one uppercase I.
In a press release, the company said that tronc Inc would be “a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels”.
The name, according to the release, is a shortening of Tribune Online Content.
“tronc pools the company’s leading media brands and leverages innovative technology to deliver personalized and interactive experiences to its 60m monthly users,” the release continued, using the lower-case t despite the word coming at the beginning of the sentence.
The release also announced the launch of “troncX”, an “online curation and monetization engine” which utilizes artificial intelligence technology “to accelerate digital growth”.
The reaction on social media was swift and merciless.
the future of media pic.twitter.com/bvPkbOwDGD
— ♥︎ (@yurivictor) June 2, 2016
Errbody in da club gettin' TRONC.
— Peter Frost (@peterfrost) June 2, 2016
@NickyWoolf @AlexKoppelman pic.twitter.com/UbWlMamPcg
— Alan Yuhas (@AlanYuhas) June 2, 2016
"TRONC TRONC" is how Law and Order starts, right?
— Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) June 2, 2016
Lil Jon: YEAHHHHH! WHATTTTT! tronc!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/abCAUjrhTx
— Lauren M. Davis (@L_McCormack) June 2, 2016
Go home Twitter, you're tronc.
— Matt Sammon (@SammonSez) June 2, 2016
The company, which employs 14,000 people, has been facing financial woes for some time, with journalists at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times facing round after round of layoffs and buyouts.
In April, Gannett, a media conglomerate that owns Newsquest in the UK and a number of newspapers in the US, offered $815m to buy Tribune Publishing. In response, Tribune chair Michael Ferro said that Tribune would buy Gannett instead.
