The company man: Tribune Broadcasting CEO John Reardon goes national and looks local.(Tribune Broadcasting Co.)

Broadcasting & Cable, January, 2006 by Romano, Allison

A week after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, John Reardon flew to Baton Rouge with a team of fellow Tribune Broadcasting executives on a chartered plane loaded with water, food and cash. Staffers at Tribune's ABC affiliate WGNO and its WB outlet WNOL had fled the studio they shared near the Superdome and retreated to Louisiana's capital. Although the storm had knocked the stations temporarily off the air and badly damaged their facility, for Reardon, then-group VP for Tribune's West and South regions, the first priority was the employees, many of whom had lost homes and were separated from their families. "These were human beings," Reardon says. "This wasn't business."

Today, getting the New Orleans duopoly back to business is one of many priorities for...

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