This process should tell us whether the money people believe metropolitan dailies have much life left. Tribune, which is expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection at year end, is looking for a banker to help sell its eight newspapers which include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg reports. Rupert Murdoch is known to be interested in those two papers as he prepares to split off News Corp‘s publishing operations — including The Wall Street Journal and New York Post — into a publicly traded company. Last week Murdoch said that WSJ Managing Editor Robert Thomson will run the publishing group, which will retain the News Corp name. (The company with the entertainment assets will be called Fox Group.) Thomson said he intends to “lead a broader revenue renaissance for quality content.” In addition to the Chicago and Los Angeles papers, Tribune owns the Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel of South Florida, The Orlando Sentinel, The Hartford Courant, The Morning Call, and The Daily Press. It also owns 23 television stations.