We all knew it was bad. Today, New York Times media reporter David Carr tells us how bad in an exhaustive piece on Tribune Co. under real-estate mogul Sam Zell and his nutty co-conspirators, Randy Michaels and Lee Abrams.

There’s plenty of sex and rock-and-roll, though no drugs. The only false note is Carr’s description of the new barbarians desecrating the “shrine” that was the office of longtime Tribune owner Robert McCormick.

Then again, though the Colonel was a piece of work on the order of the foul-mouthed Zell himself, he never would have dreamed off stripping his newspaper and ushering it into bankruptcy.