November 17, 2003

silhouette3.JPG From the desk of Jane Galt:

Conrad Black has been forced to step down after an investigation uncovered $32 million in "unauthorized transfer payments", which seems to mean bribes.

Conrad Black, for those who don't remember, is the newspaper magnate who renounced his Canadian citizenship in order to join the House of Lords. Looks like that may have been a bad call. Not doing much for the image of the Lords, either, although at least now Jeffrey Archer may have someone to talk to.

Posted by Jane Galt at November 17, 2003 2:02 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Comments
Posted by: Jay C. on November 17, 2003 2:25 PM

Well, it's hard to see what more could be done to the image of the House of Lords than Tony Blair has already accomplished (aided and abetted of course, by the nature of the House of Lords itself) - but this news is certainly not good. IIRC, Conrad Black was one of the few British media magnates to adopt a reasonably consistent pro-American and pro-Israel line (or at least an anti-anti-American and anti-anti-Israel one) in his publications. If he has truly been "forced out" (BTW Jane, where's the link?) this looks to be a net loss for a lot of folks.

Posted by: Bob Dobalina on November 17, 2003 2:54 PM

Is this the same Conrad Black who wrote the "FDR saved America" tripe in the WSJ a coupla weeks ago?

Posted by: The Black Lord on November 17, 2003 2:56 PM

You can find a trove of information on this at the Chicago Tribune's website. They're taking particular pleasure in reporting on this story because Black's company owns the Chicago Sun Times. In a story (not commentary) on Saturday, the Tribune discussed that the company may have difficulties finding a buyer for its papers such as the Sun Times because buyers don't like "number two" papers in markets. Despite their schadenfrude (sp?), the Tribune seems to have the best coverage on the story.

Posted by: David Thomson on November 17, 2003 8:24 PM

"Is this the same Conrad Black who wrote the "FDR saved America" tripe in the WSJ a coupla weeks ago?"

Yup, and he also has a long letter to the editor printed in today's WSJ on the same subject. Black wrote a recently released book on FDR.

Posted by: wallster on November 18, 2003 8:09 AM

This is good news. From what I've heard about this guy, he's another Rupert Murdoch.

Posted by: old maltese on November 18, 2003 3:05 PM

No, it's bad news. Yes, he is another Rupert Murdoch.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley on November 19, 2003 8:06 PM

whew! at first i thought you meant conrad of gweilo fame!

http://www.gweilodiaries.com/

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