Tribune Publishing Co. , the 150-year-old brand that owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune newspapers, is changing its name to tronc Inc. in a nod to the publisher’s transformation into a more digitally focused company. 
 
 The new moniker, announced on Thursday, functions as an acronym of sorts for Tribune Online Content. The business is being described as “a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels.” 
 
 It’s just the latest shake-up under Michael W. Ferro, Jr., who bought a stake in the company and became chairman in February. He has since unveiled a new digital-first strategy, brought on new investors and board members and rebuffed a takeover offer from Gannett Co. GCI 3.69% that carried a 99% premium. 
 
 Mr. Ferro first revealed the name tronc last month on an earnings call with analysts when he used it to describe the new digital platform he was building that would use artificial intelligence and “machine vision” technology to revolutionize how information reaches readers. 
 
 At the time, he said the phrase was a British term for the box in which tips are collected at a restaurant and are later doled out to staff. According to some dictionaries, “tronc master” refers to the person who distributes those pooled tips at a restaurant or hotel. 
 
 “Our industry requires an innovative approach and a fundamentally different way of operating,” Mr. Ferro said in a statement. “Our rebranding to tronc represents the manner in which we will pool our technology and content resources to execute on our strategy.” 
 
 There is a long history of brands, particularly in media, adjusting their names after a split, usually to avoid confusion with the sister company. But Tribune Publishing has carried the same branding since it was spun off in 2014 from broadcast holdings that became Tribune Media. 
 
 When Gannett separated, the digital and broadcast division changed its name to TEGNA, which it said was a nod to Gannett’s more than 100-year history—presumably because Tegna included the same letters as Gannett. And after News Corp . , the owner of The Wall Street Journal, split in two, the television and film side of the business took the name 21st Century Fox . The nomenclature change led to frequent mix-ups at the studio, which is still called 20th Century Fox, a century behind its parent company. 
 
 Time Warner Cable famously went the other route, licensing the “Time Warner” name ever since its 2009 spinoff from Time Warner Inc. That led to mass confusion over the years, with Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes frequently getting missives from angry cable customers targeting the wrong company and protesters showing up at the wrong offices. That headache is soon fading away as the Time Warner Cable name is phased out after its sale to Charter Communications . 
 
 One of the more famous head-scratcher rebrandings in recent years was Kraft Foods, which changed its name to Mondelēz International Inc. (pronounced mohn-dah-LEEZ) in 2012. It was meant to evoke the idea of a “delicious world.” “Monde” comes from the Latin word for “world,” and “delēz” is a “fanciful expression of ‘delicious,’” Kraft executives explained at the time. In some places like Russia, however, the name elicited a level of embarrassment as it sounded very close to a very dirty Russian slang phrase. 
 
 The name change to tronc will become effective on June 20, when the company’s stock will cease trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TPUB and will be moved to the Nasdaq with the new symbol TRNC. 
 
 Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com ||||| The parent company that owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times said it would now be known as a ‘content curation and monetization company’ 
 
 Why is everyone talking about 'tronc'? 
 
 Tribune Publishing, the parent company that owns several storied and proud newspapers in the US including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, announced on Thursday that it would be changing its name to “tronc Inc.” 
 
 That’s with one lowercase t and one uppercase I. 
 
 
 
 In a press release, the company said that tronc Inc would be “a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels”. 
 
 
 
 The name, according to the release, is a shortening of Tribune Online Content. 
 
 “tronc pools the company’s leading media brands and leverages innovative technology to deliver personalized and interactive experiences to its 60m monthly users,” the release continued, using the lower-case t despite the word coming at the beginning of the sentence. 
 
 The release also announced the launch of “troncX”, an “online curation and monetization engine” which utilizes artificial intelligence technology “to accelerate digital growth”. 
 
 The reaction on social media was swift and merciless. 
 
 ♥︎ (@yurivictor) the future of media pic.twitter.com/bvPkbOwDGD 
 
 Peter Frost (@peterfrost) Errbody in da club gettin' TRONC. 
 
 Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) "TRONC TRONC" is how Law and Order starts, right? 
 
 Lauren M. Davis (@L_McCormack) Lil Jon: YEAHHHHH! WHATTTTT! tronc!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/abCAUjrhTx 
 
 Matt Sammon (@SammonSez) Go home Twitter, you're tronc. 
 
 The company, which employs 14,000 people, has been facing financial woes for some time, with journalists at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times facing round after round of layoffs and buyouts. 
 
 In April, Gannett, a media conglomerate that owns Newsquest in the UK and a number of newspapers in the US, offered $815m to buy Tribune Publishing. In response, Tribune chair Michael Ferro said that Tribune would buy Gannett instead.
– It might sound like a French expletive or a new musical craze sweeping the South, but "tronc" is the brand new name of Tribune Publishing, owner of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. The company—which is abandoning both the 169-year-old Tribune moniker and, apparently, the practice of capitalizing company names—announced on Thursday that it will now be known as "tronc Inc," an acronym for Tribune Online Content, the Wall Street Journal reports. It says it's becoming "a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels." Michael Ferro, who became the company's chairman earlier this year and is fighting off a takeover bid from Gannett, says "tronc" is the British term for a box where restaurant tips are pooled, which is apparently how he sees the company's new direction. "Our rebranding to tronc represents the manner in which we will pool our technology and content resources to execute on our strategy," he said in a statement. The Guardian notes that online reaction to the rebrand was "swift and merciless." "If you wanted to signify the pathetic nasal honks of the last dying dinosaur, 'tronc' would be a pretty good word," tweeted Quentin Hardy, the New York Times' deputy tech editor. (In 2012, Kraft rebranded its snack business "Mondelez.")