But Gannett is not the only big media enterprise where the consequences of bad decisions land on everyone except those who made them. The Tribune Company, a chain of newspapers and television stations run into the ground by Sam Zell after he bought it in 2007, is paying out tens of millions of dollars in bonuses as part of a deal in which it would exit bankruptcy.

Over 4,000 people in the company lost their jobs, and the journalistic missions of formerly robust newspapers it operates — including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun — have been curtailed. And even though Randy Michaels and some of his corporate fraternity brothers who operated the company into bankruptcy are gone, more than 600 managers who were there while the company cratered remain.

Not only do they have jobs while so many others were sent packing, but the remaining leadership will be eligible for a bonus pool from $26.4 million to $32.4 million under the current plan.

Through the magic of blunt force cost-cutting — about $800 million over the last three years, much of it in the form of layoffs — a lawyer for the senior creditors told the judge in charge of the bankruptcy case that the bankrupt enterprise would generate an estimated $517 million in cash flow for 2011.

Over the past three years, counting the payment scheduled for 2011, the bonuses could amount to $115 million, according to The Chicago Tribune. The drawn-out legal process hasn’t stopped lawyers and the current managers from picking the carcass clean. The Tribune story includes overleveraged purchases, feckless management and a culture of personal enrichment, all hallmarks of the Wall Street way that have left protesters enraged.