With the well-documented problems plaguing both Midwestern dailies, it’s a toss-up as to which metro market will lose its daily newspaper first, Minneapolis or Chicago. The Newsosaur Alan Mutter has another great post today on the vastly different approaches that Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell have taken since both acquired their newspapers roughly 6 months ago, and the New York Times has also chimed in on the preposterous path that Sam Zell is taking in trying to save his business by slashing everything in sight. As Mutter rightly points out, what is even more shocking than Zell’s apparent lack of any cohesive plan he is following is the fact that his creditors loaned him more than $12 billion without asking about what he intended to do to fix a dteriorating business model. Everyone in this deal except the poor Tribune employees (who also happen to be owners) deserve exactly what they’re going to get in this deal – nothing but an obliterated business left in complete shambles after everything of value has been sold off piecemeal.