Media Turnabout

Giving the grey lady a few gray hairs, a frequent target of the NY Times, retired insurance mogul Hank Greenberg is buying up shares of the paper to challenge the Sulzberger family management. New York Post:

Shareholder watchdogs have slammed Times management as overpaid - criticism that forced Sulzberger and his cousin, Vice Chairman Michael Golden, to say in September they would forgo about $2 million in stock awards and pump it into a bonus pool for the company's employees.

Greenberg, a legendary figure in the New York financial community, ran AIG for nearly 40 years before being deposed in a bitter boardroom coup after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer alleged the company engaged in accounting improprieties.

Spitzer eventually filed charges against Greenberg and ex-AIG CFO Howard Smith. Fighting back bitterly in the courts and the media, Greenberg eventually got Spitzer to drop all criminal charges against him.

There are also reports Greenberg is considering other media properties, including the Tribune.