Well, the street is abuzz with this news.
Or, maybe not.
I’m an agnostic on Black. However, I do wonder how much interest there would be in his legal problems if he were a Canadian born United Nations Special Advisor* on North Korea, instead of “media mogul”.
At the very least, I do think there are editors who would do well to check whether their TV cameras are capturing real news, or just another reflection in the Canadian media fish bowl.
Update – I guess this was inevitable – the Conrad Black Trial blog.
The Left has given him (Strong) a pass. As long as they control the MSM, it will remain that way.
Yep..Canadian Media Fishbowl!
Shiny little guppy Heather Hiscox from CBC is noticeably blowing bubbles in her excitement to be in the general proximity of the “Important’ event.
On the more serious side I think it’s too bad that Black will never be able to compensate the investor/shareholders who paid for his excess!
I’m not following the trial, but I am being subjected to quite a bit of coverage no matter the channel.
And the thing that strikes me is the typical Canadian-ness of the reports. There’s far less focus on the merits of the case than there is on the annoyingly perpetual Canadian question: what do the Americans think of us?
In this case there’s a lot of “Conrad Black and Eddie Greenspan are household names in Canada, but gosh darn it the Americans don’t know who they are. And what’s worse, while we’re here having a feeding frenzy the American press have relegated the trial to a few scant words to page A12.”
I find it funny that those who think Americans are bastards care what Americans think of Canada and Canadians.
Lord Black of Black Harbour has brought shame upon the high standard of Canadian robber barons.
Conrad loaded cases of sensitive files into his limo personally, while TV cameras recorded every move.
True moguls always delegate that low level theft to careful operatives who pose as UPS delivery men. Shameful.
Ex-liberal justice minister Rock is to vouch for the character of one of Black*s
co-defendants on the fraud charges, Peter Atkinson, Jack Boultbee and Mark Kipnis, who were also in court.
If the judge were to google *scamslist*, regarding the *Rock* Liberal government, Conrad and his friends gooses are cooked. = TG
Bang-on, Kate !!
One man has shady accounting methods.
The other is trying to destroy our way of life in order to impose his UN One World Governance thing.
Which one does the Canadian media focus on !!??
All this from Oak Lake, Manitoba !!
I have the feeling, that well known Authors like Lorrie Goldstein, Peter Foster and others, have tonnes of material, at the ready, for a major book on Canadian, Maurice Strong. Are the publishers, Chapters ect, the holdup ??
Conrad Black is news to us. Real news. Not a media fishbowl. I will buy a paper that covers this trial. The man is not a big deal in the US but he is a bona fide huge deal here at home. He started a second national newspaper. His compatriots have revitalised MacLeans. He battled the Prime Minister over the peerage issue. And he has been an aggressive and interesting commentator on numerous domestic and international political issues. His business decisions – acquisitions or wind ups – have directly affected many canadian lives and communities. He is our Donald Trump. He is our Citizen Kane. The idea that the Conrad Black trial is only newsw because he is in the newspaper business and is therefore of interest primarily to those in that business is, quite simply, facile.
CTV Poll
Will you be watching the Conrad Black trial ?
81 percent NO !!!
And they wonder why more and more Canadians are using the Internet and blogs for their news source. Many young Canadians cannot even name a TV, so-called reporter
Can’t remember the details, but Black was no friend to Chretien.(details anyone?) That gets me cheering for him a bit.(assuming he isn’t a crook)
I’ll be interested in the end result…too much hype for now.
How much is it costing the taxpayer to have cbc reporters in Chicago for the length of this trial. I hope all their expenses are not covered for after hours entertainment. Will their expenses be vetted like a politicians or senate committee are.
And, as the cbc is talking of stopping broadcasts to over a million possible viewers, will their budget be cut by the amount servicing those viewers cost.
OMMAG, Black made them oodles of money. They wrecked the joint by ousting him.
Like Kate, I’m fairly agnostic on Black and his Lady wife as well. On the one hand the apparent shady dealings and the tawdry, conspicuous lifestyle, but on the other, both erudite, clever people and Conrad at one time an accomplished business mogul. And sticking his figure in Chretien’s eye, well who couldn’t love that. And his cantankerous yet polished manner to the MSM is somewhat endearing as well. Starting up the Post with its anti-MSM approach, writing erudite books about US Presidents. So maybe I’m not so agnostic, maybe I’m closer to being in his corner.
But as for Mo Strong, shouldn’t he be extradited, say to Iraq, to face trial?
CBCpravda will be following it close, they need to start working on stuff to fill in what they have now lost.- CFL, NHL and the Olympics.
In the future –
expect court coverage, little mosque on the prairie reruns, rainbow country and beachcomber remakes. feature Nick Al Donidis , Rel Al Ic, Mullahs Reach, the National Threepeat, Local news (3 minute max) and Ralph Benmergi and George Alphabetsoupius.
To tell the truth, I don’t even know what Lord (?) Black is charged with but then again that Fox Report on Mo Strong was the first time I saw how cancerous his influence has been and still is. I’ve seen the Power Corp/Lieberal family tree that is so intertwined that it makes the mafia look like a roll call at an orphanage. The Strong story would have the US tabloids filled with stories for life but for some reason he and his dealings have managed to fly under the radar with no problem, especially so in Canada. I guess the Canadian media ran out of Anna Nicole Smith stories with a Canadian tie in so Conrad Black it is.
I’m agnostic on Black; I simply don’t know enough about the situation. But my conspiracy theory is that Chretien is behind this trial.
Black started the National Post with a clear intention of ousting Chretien.Chretien is part of the PowerCorps, Desmarais, Mo Strong gang – all wrapped up in oil money in the ME and China. Now, that’s real corruption for you, but our press ignores this.
Chretien is a complete, total narcissist, and for anyone to openly claim that he is not ‘Da Best’ – well, Chretien has had only one agenda with regard to Black. Destroy him.
Chretien is vindictive and malicious.
Now, Chretien is out of up-front political power but remains and has become even more powerful within the PowerCorp, Mo Strong international gang. He’d have the contacts, I suggest, to ensnare Black and even corrupt the process.
As for MSM interest – it’s puzzling. I think it’s part of the Canadian psyche to reject wealth, reject achievements. It’s all part of the Canadian multicultural homogeneity; we are all middle class – no extremes. And we are all enclosed in our homogeneous ethnic/religious etc communities. No individualism, no entrepreneurial agendas, no wealthy people.
It should be interesting to follow this trial. He’s been all but convicted by the media, et al.
Well, I find it interesting. Black has been a major political player in Canada so the accusations against him are important.
Black is big news, but there’s room for stories on Strong, too. It’s not an “either-or” situation. In fact, there’s also room for any articles on charges over Sponsorship, Shawinigate and Airbus, if they happen to come along. Don’t hold your breath.
This trial is going to be terrific to watch and observe, and I for one am interested in Lord Black and his co-defendants being found not guilty. Imagine the power of the State ceasing your assists freezing your funds, bearing it’s weight down on anyone without money, power and more than a degree of influence and character. They would be crushed. Hollinger always made money, regardless of what is being said about Black. Now, in a kafkaesque moment the accusers of Black and company are the profiteers pillaging the company reducing what was the much quoted “third largest print media company” Into a penny stock.
I admit to watching with interest the trial of Conrad Black.
My suspicion is that the current top dogs and lesser puppies in Canadian MSM are gloating at his travails.
The issue of Americans and their knowledge of Canada or Conrad Black during juror selection is interesting.
One of the prospective jurors when asked what they knew of Canada replied “they are a socialist country!”
Enough said.
They know more than we think they do.
As for Conrad and the others so charged, my hope is that they are found not guilty.
The charges of fraud, racketeering etc., Black and his cohorts are dealing with are legitimate charges in the private world, yet the rot, corruption and malfeasance by which Chretien’s Liberals administered a whole nation are evidently exempt from the dock.
Too bad!
I have made this observation elsewhere.
My beef with Conrad Black is that he had under his control the means to mitigate leftist media concentration and simply abandoned Canada to the current leftist horde of MSM.
And I could care less of how he and Barbara spent their money or their lifestyle.
That’s more than I can say for the thievin ba***rds that governed us for a decade.
Wimpy Canadian at March 16, 2007 1:16 PM…
Um.. he made money OK! And looted the company to feed his own outrageous vanities!
ALL the money he took from the company belonged to Shareholders FIRST! This is what he needs to repay but cannot! The alternative for him and the incompetents or crooks of the executive and Board of Hollinger is jail time …. some justice but not recompense!
Black draws the ire of the media left because conservatives are not supposed to have media ownership/influence…that is reserved for the sanctimonious stilted left.
Black is a dead duck. American justice is for TV only. Remember the Martha hatchet job? Remember the Lowen Group in a good old boys southern Court?
I too must say I’m agnostic, and frankly deeply disappointed. No question, with those phony non-compete clasues he treated the company like a personal piggy bank and, tho’ he made money for the shareholders, he also showed aristocratic/arrogant contempt for them. His contemptuous line “this corporate governance fad will pass” (or words close to that) was ill-advised to say the least.
That said, it’s also a beautiful example for hard core libertarians; to wit, the shareholders were a lot better off being ripped off by Black than being subjected to the wanton destruction visited upon the company by the limelight-addicted regulatory and legal whores. I believe that the investment company Tweedy Browne who started this have now admitted same.
Much better for this to have been sorted out by shareholder corporate governance activism leaving the regulators out of it.
There’s no similarity here with Martha Stewart. Her case is better compared to Scooter Libby’s: lying about a legal act.
I think Black is going to be CREAMED (unfairly). He could have avoided this by an early offer to make amends, but he was too proud for that.
“Black draws the ire of the media left because conservatives are not supposed to have media ownership/influence…that is reserved for the sanctimonious stilted left.”
The “left” controls no media at all. (In Canada we have a somewhat broader political spectrum than exists in the U.S. Thus, Liberals are not “left” here. Canada nonetheless has an extremely narrow political spectrum compared to other parts of the world.) The Toronto Star is Liberal. The CBC is all over the place. They show some “leftish” documentaries (in the true sense of “left”) but they also give a lot of air time to right-wing commentators and there has been a lot of propaganda lately about the “mission” in Afghanistan. The Globe and Mail is a business (and therefore conservative) paper that has sometimes leaned towards the Liberal party. (That doesn’t make it “left”!) The GandM seems to have been alarmed by what it perceived as the social conservatism of the Conservative Party but I expect they will endorse the Conservatives in the coming election. The Edmonton Journal is also a more or less liberal paper.Virtually every other media outlet in English-speaking Canada is conservative. Your sense of persecution bears no relationship to reality.
I agree with you Kate. They are determined to make this a hot story so everybody had best play along, dammit! Be interested! Look, we got Peter C Neuman – resistance is futile – not.
“Your sense of persecution bears no relationship to reality.”
That’s typical Marxist propaganda.
I’m an artist, so anything I do is art.
I’m a Leftist so anything I say is true.
Is this another post-normal form of knowledge?
“The “left” controls no media at all”
One thing about the left, they are good for a laugh!
At not time did I say that Black’s legal problems aren’t news.
I just wonder why the jury selection in a Chicago trial rates top story on the CTV Natinoal.
Mark Steyn for one believes in Conrad Black’s innocence. Read these two articles for the other side of the story.
http://www.macleans.ca/homepage/magazine/article.jsp?content=20070312_103140_103140
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/steyn200412100923.asp
Conrad Black created a lot of wealth for a lot of investors. He was the majority shareholder. His successors have cut the value of his companies by three quarters. Wealth is not created by government or companies. It is created by entrepreneurs such as Black. Without Black – no value creation. Imagine Small Dead Animals without Kate or Instapundit without Glen Reynolds.
When Black wanted to become a Lord in the British Parliament, Chretien brought out an obscure law saying you could not hold Canadian Citizenship while being in the government of a foreign country. Hence Black had to renounce his Canadian Citizenship to become a British Lord even though Britian’s Queen is our head of state. Chretien then promptly awarded Nelson Mandela honorary Canadian Citizenship.
Exceptional post Joe Molnar. I like what you say too, Fritz.
I was over the moon to read the National Post when it emerged on the Canadian scene , FINALLY a newspaper that was interesting and that told the truth in black and white. I bought every copy and read it like a greedy, starved, piggy. When the people of Canada were stupid enough to elect a crook and thug like Cretian after Conrade had given them the goods on the outfit and the man; Conrade did leave – you can only bang your head on a cement wall for so long!!
Imagine how different Canada would be today if we had not elected multi millionaire criminals to run our country and spend our tax money?
Like Hoax Beware, I await the ‘not guilty’ verdict and I’m hoping to see His Lordship Mr. Black acting as Judge in the trials of the Power-corp (Martaine, The Cretin, Mo tse Strong, Koffee anon…the whole gang of people haters – EXPOSED – I can hardly wait!!) outfit and all the clingers…who will be clankers in my hopes; clankers in chains….
I think Conrade Black will get a fair trial in the USA. I do not believe him to be guilty for one nano second – as he says, himself, it has been one big smear campaign against a man who refused to kow tow to the human haters.
All people who love freedom better be hoping that Mr. Black wins, IMO. I will be cheering for him everyday.
Conrad Black would never have been charged with any crime, in Canada. Same thing for the big cheeses at Nortel. And if Enron were a Canadian company, they would still be in bizness.
(Fortunately-for us folks stuck in Oinktario- we have Hydro 1 to rip us off!)
“It’s the Canadian way.”)
If you want to know why prosecution of white collar crime in Canada is so rare and futile:
“The Canadian way: Do the crime, not the time/Not the American way”
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/007811.html
“Why the Mounties so rarely get their (white collar) man”
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/006012.html
Mark
Ottawa
As a business man for 45 years I can say without a doubt that if I were paying a non compete fee it would be to Black and not to whatever Company he was working for/controlling or owned at the time. Think it through, you can change companies like used underwear, what good is a non-compete clause with a company if the builder, heart and brains moves on. Look at the present value of the companies he once owned and controlled, down the toilet along with the underwear. Those that are complaining about Black getting the non-compete fees are of the teachers pension fund mentality. I hope they had large holdings.
“Mark Steyn for one believes in Conrad Black’s innocence.”
Mark Steyn spent a few years kneeling in front of old Connie, so his opinion is irrelevant.
black got caught dipping into the till.
except it wasnt 50 bucks, it was 50 million.
what happens these days to those caught stealing from the employer?
oh my, criminal record and such.
hey blackie, best top up your defense team.
There’s no similarity here with Martha Stewart. Her case is better compared to Scooter Libby’s: lying about a legal act.”
you mean the part about the government fudging evidence related to an anomoly in the type of ink used in the documents they dragged out as ‘evidence’?
from ap via fox news:
Martha’s Lawyers: Feds Withheld Evidence
Thursday, October 07, 2004
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
NEW YORK — Appeals lawyers for Martha Stewart (search) accused the government Thursday of improperly withholding evidence that “could have led to an acquittal” in the celebrity homemaker’s trial.
The accusation, in a letter to federal prosecutors and the judge who oversaw the trial, came one day before Stewart was to report to a federal prison in West Virginia to begin serving a five-month sentence.
The lawyers said prosecutors should have provided Stewart’s legal team with documents that emerged as evidence during the recent
here it is *************************************
perjury trial of ink expert Larry Stewart (search), who testified against Martha Stewart at her trial.
Among the documents is a 2002 memo written by a Secret Service scientist who had tested the ink on a worksheet of Martha Stewart’s stock holdings — a key piece of evidence against the homemaking maven and her ex-stockbroker. In the memo, scientist Susan Fortunato wrote that ink in a notation of “(at)60” next to a listing for ImClone Systems Inc. (IMCL) stock was different from “all” other inks on the worksheet.
curious non? ***********************************
(Story continues below) (not really)
“I just wonder why the jury selection in a Chicago trial rates top story on the CTV Natinoal.”
I just wish they’d pay this much attention to Alfonso Gagliano’s alleged mob connections.
Iberia I realize the only way someone with your limited mental faculties can keep a job is to kneel in front of your boss but it was actually Mr. Asper who was kneeling in front of Mark Steyn to try to keep him at the National Post after “old Connie” sold it.
Is there really going to be a book about Maurice Strong and his shenanigans on the horizon? I’ll believe it when I see it, he has too many fingers in too many pies!
I for one, would like to see Conrad Black get off, and pay back the money to his stockholders.
Fritzed:
Asper may have been begging, but it was all for naught, since Steyn will always be loyal to the man who gave him his first pearl necklace.
By the way, perhaps one day you, with your unlimited mental faculties, will figure out how to write a proper sentence.
I’m in Conrad’s corner. I think the US justice system is no longer about justice but about launching political careers. People like Fitzpatrick and Spitzer are seriously endangering the United States reputation as a dangerous place to do business. That is why London recently surpassed New York as the Financial capital of the world – the US isn’t a business-friendly environment any more.
The other reason why I’m rooting for Conrad is because the fallout for many people if he is acquitted will be fun to watch. Conrad likes to sue anyone who badmouths him so if he wins there will be plenty of defamation suits against English and Canadian journalists and newspapers, and I predict malicious prosecution suits against Fitzpatrick and the other prosecutors, not to mention the lawsuits against the people that deposed him.
What interests me, and what I think points to good prospects for an acquittal of Black is that he isn’t the only one who plead not-guilty. I doubt Black is the type to every give in, but are Jack Boultbee and the other two accused? Given that they could have gotten off with only a couple of years. I’m curious about Radler as well? Is he really going to be as useful a witness as the prosecution thinks or is this all an elaborate ploy he cooked up with Black. Conrad, after all is a big fan of military history (Napoleon in particular) and I wouldn’t put it past him to create some elaborate deception in order to derail the prosecution.
“Mark Steyn spent a few years kneeling in front of old Connie, so his opinion is irrelevant.”
Au contraire, my peanut brained moonbat, that’s exactly what makes his opinion relevant.
Black formed a conservative leaning newspaper empire. The leftist political vermin, like Chretien, didn’t like this. Did this result in a vast conspiracy to bring Black down? Who knows.
However, even if Black is found guilty, he’s a helluva lot less guilty than Liberals stealing public billions and milking the world with wild speculative theories complete with brownshirt tactics.
And we’ll all be sorrier for leftist crime not being exposed as much as it should.
Whose opinion matters more when it comes to judging media barons:
Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller and a Number One bestseller in Canada. His writing on politics, arts and culture can be read each week throughout much of the English-speaking world.
In the United States, he is a columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, America’s fifth most-read daily paper, and also appears in The New York Sun, the city’s first new broadsheet daily in a quarter of a century, The Washington Times, and The Orange County Register in California. In addition, Mark writes for The New Criterion, and serves as resident obituarist for The Atlantic Monthly and National Review’s Happy Warrior. In Canada, he can be read in the Dominion’s liveliest political magazine The Western Standard, and he writes a weekly books column for Maclean’s. Mark also appears in The Jerusalem Post, the Middle East’s leading English-language daily; The Australian, Australia’s national newspaper; Investigate and Hawke’s Bay Today in New Zealand; and more occasionally in The Wall Street Journal and (translated into Italian) Il Foglio, but even when he’s not in them he thinks they’re worth reading, which is why we link to them here. Mark also chips in at The Corner, appears each week on The Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, and occasionally does a guest-hosting stint on The Rush Limbaugh Program and Hannity & Colmes .
Mark’s other books include Mark Steyn’s Passing Parade , Mark Steyn From Head To Toe and The Face Of The Tiger . His personal view of musical theatre, Broadway Babies Say Goodnight , was published to critical acclaim in London, and to somewhat sniffier notices in New York.
OR
Iberia: Anonymous knee pad wearing Troll of right wing blogs
the local rag (not part of the hollinger group) obsesses about how Ms Amiel’s couture will affect the view of jurors etc.
?
wtf?
is that all it takes? get the missus to dress down into inobtrusive threads and create an impression of modesty?
the verdict is in before the trial has begun, based on Ms Amiel’s wardrobe apparently.
@Kate: I believe the reason why the trial has gotten so much press up here is because Conrad is, or at least used to be, a bankable personage in Canada. The effect of media insularity this hyper-exposure may be, but the top bosses of the media establishements do know about that insularity you mentioned. If the trial proves to be overexposed up here, I’d chalk it up to a mistake of media entrepreneurship, not necessarily of media insularity.
However, your point that the Black trial may very well be overexposed is a good one. There may be egg on some faces in a few media boardrooms if your suspicion proves to be prescient.
———-
@Fritz:
1. Thanks for the link to the Mark Steyn piece in Maclean’s.
2. The Nickle Resolution actually wasn’t a law; it was a plea to the Sovereign. [Text of it here.] I don’t really know why regulations would have been slapped on a resolution that ends with the words, “All of which we humbly pray Your Majesty to take into your favourable and gracious consideration.”
(@all: If you want to amuse yourself, clipboard the entire text of the Nickle Resolution, change the “Your Majesty” to “the people of Canada” and “praying”/”pray” to “imploring/implore” respectively, and replace the two middle paragraphs with whatever you’d like to see criminalized or prohibited. Does what you end up with read like a statute?)
You’re so clever, Fritzy. Copy and paste Steyn’s bio from SteynOnline. No bias there. Just like Steyn’s connection to Black means that there is no bias in Steyn’s opinion of Black. Wonder why Steyn has nice things to say about Black? Given that Steyn is a former arts critic without a university education, the only reason Black would publish and promote Steyn is because of their shared political ideology. Black played a large role in making Steyn.
Regardless, Steyn’s political opinions are ignorant and his prognostications are frequently wrong. He has made brilliant statements like Osama bin Laden will remain dead; there is no widespread resentment at or resistance of the western military presence in Iraq; and, “I don’t think it’s possible for anyone who looks at Iraq honestly to see it as anything other than a success story.” I wonder why he didn’t include things like that in his bio? I think that Steyn’s opinion on any subject is questionable.
The perception that the left controls the media is really quite amusing. Ever hear of Fox New, among so many others? They all have the same slant, rarely get down to serious questions involving the antics of politicians and our leaders in various areas. You say garbage? Well who supplies the money to keep these media outlets in business? Joe and Flo? Umm…big business maybe, and the people who like to control, and manipulate? Do you bite the hand that feeds you?
ya, ‘liberal’ controlled media.
liberals with BILLIONS invested and billions pouring out of the media intertwined medusa like monster. some ‘liberals’ those are.
you people need to ‘brush the snow off’ your PROPAGANDA DETECTORS right after you touch up the satellite dish.
I dont have any television feed whatsoever coming into my home at this time, Rogers was a fukup from the get go, bell xpress became one way too quickly and nobody wants to take up the slack.
present old fashioned print media subscriptions:
-local rag part of sun media,
– t.o. star sunday edition
– frank magazine
– Foreign Policy subscription just renewed, waiting for next issue.
– numerous various non-subscription purchases incl a lot of Economist.
– occassional visits to local library to browse periodicals section
– plus, WEB SITES of other ‘traditional’ media
aaaaaaand the blogosphere.
I dont have time for all that amurcun ‘desperate houswives’ pap.