Billionaire and Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell is just phenomenal. If you haven’t seen the video of him telling a photographer at the Orlando Sentinel to fuck off, you gotta watch it.

The exchange, posted at Gawker, happened after the journalist questioned Zell about his feeling that the industry needs to look more at what readers want instead of the traditional arrogance of telling readers what we, as journalist, want them to know.

I don’t disagree that a fundamental role of journalism and newspapers is to be a government watchdog, but we have definitely ignored our reader’s needs and especially the habits and lifestyles of people who don’t currently read our print products for far too long.

Zell’s point was more about the need to find ways to increase revenue and audience, more than anything, in order to survive and thrive.

“Hopefully we can get to the point where our revenue is so significant that we can do puppies and Iraq.”

Mark Potts, in his Recovering Journalist blog, gives kudos to Zell for telling it like it is, and I couldn’t agree more.

Sorry folks. Zell’s response may have been a bit salty, but he said exactly what every interview subject has thought at the hands of a pushy reporter with an agenda.

A lot of people in the media and newspaper industry need to hear more of this coming from their top executives.