:. back to News Releases Menu For immediate release December 5, 2005 For more information, contact: Steve Tippie Media Relations Tribune Media Services (312) 222-4455 stippie@tribune.com TMS To Launch Pop Culture Column by Pulitzer Prize-Winner Dan Neil Chicago, IL, December 5, 2005 — Tribune Media Services (TMS), the content-licensing unit of Tribune Company, has announced it will syndicate a weekly column on pop culture and American life by Dan Neil, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Los Angeles Times. The feature, titled 800 Words, was launched in February in the Sunday magazine of the Los Angeles Times. It addresses a broad range of topics, including entertainment, technology and contemporary lifestyles. The column has examined the lives of NASCAR drivers, high-end backyards, robot dogs and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where Godzilla's new star rests. A participatory journalist, Neil also has written about his time as a short-order cook and a male model. Neil won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2004. He grew up in the South and writes, he says, as an outsider from the center of the pop-culture universe. "I've always thought of the column as finding the culture in pop culture," he adds. "Name the most ephemeral, distracting things in the media, and it turns out there's something important behind them." Neil has a bachelor's degree in creative writing from East Carolina University and a master's degree in English literature from North Carolina State University. "We think Dan Neil is among the best writers and sharpest thinkers in journalism today," said Mary Elson, managing editor of TMS. "In dissecting what makes America tick, he manages to be perceptive, entertaining and often hilarious. We're delighted to provide newspaper readers across the country with a truly distinctive voice." The first 800 Words column, distributed by TMS, was for use on Sunday, December 4. About Tribune Media Services Tribune Media Services (TMS) is a leading domestic and international provider of information and entertainment products for print, electronic and on-air media. It distributes television and movie listings and related editorial content under the TMS and Zap2it brands; syndicates and licenses comics, features and opinion columns; creates and syndicates a variety of online information products; licenses editorial content from national periodicals; and manages national advertising networks. Through its Knight Ridder/Tribune partnership, TMS also markets news and features, information graphics and multimedia content. Headquartered in Chicago, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Glens Falls, N.Y., Dallas, Milwaukee, Amsterdam, London and Hong Kong, TMS is a subsidiary of Tribune Company (NYSE:TRB). For more information about TMS and its products and services, visit www.TMS.Tribune.com.

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