Spectator

Posts with category ‘Newspapers’


Received wisdom not yet in place for the Internet

Lately, I spent some time talking to a guy whose job it is to advise another guy (one with more money) exactly what the future holds for the media. In that kind of job, it’s important to have forceful, reasoned views that point the way to concrete action. Why else would the latter pay the former to tell him what to do with his money? As required, the former went out and did scads of research into the future of the Internet—most importantly how to “monetize” content, which is the question pretty much everyone’s asking at the moment. At one point, he patted a stack of papers in front of him and announced that research shows people don’t want to watch TV on the Internet; they want to watch TV on their TVs. He said this in an effort to buttress his argument that people don’t “migrate” from one media to another (radio to TV, TV to the Internet, the Internet to another solar system, etc., etc.). Why then is The New York Times reporting that Google—one of the experts on how to monetize the Web—has just signed a deal with the creator of the cartoon Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, to provide Web-only distribution for original material?

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Satirists of Canada: Your day has come!

The past few days have seen a considerable improvement in the climate for free speech in this country. First, the Canadian Human Rights Commission pitched out the egregious complaint filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress against Maclean’s (and Mark Steyn). And now, the Supreme Court of Canada, courtesy of the good offices of Justice Ian Binnie, reconfirmed the importance of and extended the purview of what counts as fair comment. A read-through of Binnie’s opinion—which spoke for the court’s 9–0 rout reversing a B.C. Court of Appeal decision that favoured anti-gay activist Kari Simpson over shock jock Rafe Mair—reveals a veritable free speech manifesto:

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Margaret Wente’s take on gay pride proves that one kind of prejudice is still OK

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On a day when North Korea more or less gave up her nukes and the axis of evil was reduced to the axle of evil (and what with the surge going as well as it is, soon Iran will stand apart: a lone beacon of general depravity), there is much to celebrate. And yet somehow the Globe’s Margaret Wente tortures me still. Her subject yesterday: gay pride. Her lead, written in a “mocking” style, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that sarcasm really is the lowest form of humour: “Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again. Time to get out the feathers and the leathers and the nipple rings, and celebrate the wonderful diversity that is Pride Day.” Isn’t that clever? By suggesting that gay people—men and women alike—only wear leathers and nipple rings on Pride Day, “folks” like us can safely ridicule them and their “wonderful diversity.” Why? Because deep down inside, they know themselves how silly they all are? Why else would they only dress like that once a year? One thing you can safely say about Wente is that she is clearly unafraid of being either ignorant or stupid. Hell, she embraces it.

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Denied: Posner’s wry prose more or less sends Black to jail until 2013

Yesterday, in 16 pages of tightly woven legal reasoning, Richard Posner more or less put paid to whatever faint hope remained that Conrad Black will see a free day anytime before 2013. Moreover, he ensures that, barring a judicial miracle, Black’s co-conspirators Jack Boultbee and Peter Atkinson will join him as guests of the United States on or about July 10. Posner is among the most estimable minds on the American bench, and his decision reflects its author’s eclectic, sometimes eccentric, but always razor sharp intellect. The prose possessed a sniffily dismissive and wry air. In explaining the nub of Black’s fraudulent endeavours Posner writes:

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Falling over ourselves to pay tribute to Tim Russert

Tim Russert, in case you hadn’t noticed, is dead. The longest serving host of the NBC political chat show Meet the Press passed to his eternal reward recently, and the Excited States of America lived up (or down) to its somewhat sardonic anglophilic nickname. At his memorial service, Bruce Springsteen sang and eulogized via video hookup. This in tribute to Russert’s working-class roots in benighted Buffalo (a city rapidly overtaking Detroit as a symbol of rust belt decline). At the “request of the family,” McCain and Obama sat together at the funeral, implying that, even in death, only Tim could reconcile America’s political divide. And more or less anyone in the media who deemed his passing worth mentioning was slavering in their praise. Even the New Yorker’s cleverer-than-thou David Remnick heaped on the praise with just the right touch of superiority.

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Christie Blatchford and Tim Hortons: Barometers of all things Canadian

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Sometimes it’s best just to report the facts as you know them and leave the opining to your betters. Here, for example, is Christie Blatchford in this morning’s Globe reporting on the goings-on at yesterday’s terrorism trial in Brampton:

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Fallout continues after Conrad Black’s contentious appeals hearing

The fallout from Lord Black’s contentious appeals hearing included the now-familiar bumptious rebuttal from his Lordship, backed up by the usual ventriloquism offered up by George Jonas of the National Post. In all this, there was the assertion that judges Posner and Sykes were, as Black put it, “essentially part of the prosecution.” Whatever his motivation throughout the hearing, Posner was by turns caustic, sarcastic, incredulous and dismissive. Afterwards, Andrew Frey noted that it’s an appeals judge’s job to be skeptical and that it was unlikely that Posner would come off the bench and give him a hug.

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Bernardo tape released to the media, but not without pointless proviso

One of the surreal aspects of our 24-hour real-time media universe came into precise focus this morning in Justice David McComb’s fourth-floor courtroom at 361 University Avenue. He ordered that copies of Paul Bernardo’s interview with police regarding the Robert Baltovich case be released to the press. The order was carried out over a couple of hours, rendering the logistics in this matter chaotic, if not absurd. While a gaggle of press vultures (including this stooped reporter) hung over his shoulder, Iain MacKinnon—the lawyer who argued on behalf of CBC, CTV, CanWest and Rogers—burned copies of the original onto DVDs in order to make good on the court’s order. He even used his own laptop.

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Margaret Wente “reports” on the misery of latte lovers

Writing a regular column for a major newspaper is unbelievably hard work. And far be it from me to gainsay the efforts of someone who manages to crank out that much content several times a week. The best columnists appear to be satisfied with ignoring the currency or “newsworthiness” of their observations in favour of broader themes that, irrespective of the news, make the column relevant.

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The newsworthiest breast in Canada

At this time last week, l’affaire Bernier was taking wing and sending a Canadian news story flying around the world: “Over the course of 72 hours in midweek,” reported the Globe, “Ms. Couillard was the subject of thousands of articles and 821 TV reports in no fewer than 61 countries.” Moreover, “she took sole possession of a remarkable six per cent of all U.S. news coverage.” But in the blogosphere—where currency is the, uh, currency—sometimes it takes a solid week for a particular issue to come into focus. Take, for instance, John Barber’s “satire” of this coverage in last Saturday’s Globe. It was printed under the slug “Analysis” and titled “Thousands of articles, 821 TV shows, 61 countries and one breast.” That “breast” is the first of seven mentions (eight, if you count the cutline) in the piece, accompanied by two instances of the more ribald “knockers.”

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Might Thomson Reuters try to buy The New York Times?

As noted yesterday by my august colleague Philip Preville, the Globe and Mail has, in its infinite wisdom, eliminated one of the ways it annoys the readers of its print manifestation. They have officially ended the idiotic practice of charging for double-dipping—that is, charging for Web access to their premium material. The New York Times, a somewhat more essential read, has been free since September and the Wall Street Journal—from which the Globe still takes sloppy seconds in the business section—is moving more and more in that direction. The Globe’s archive is another matter; it remains behind a pay wall whereas the Times is mostly gratis. Still, for the Globe, it’s a start.

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Conrad Black looking to teach, rewrite history

He haunts us still. Conrad Black—newly minted instructor of American history at Coleman Federal Correctional Institute—takes his case before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals this Thursday, with the help of his able appeals lawyer, Andrew Frey. Oral arguments are limited to a half-hour on both sides, with yellow and red lights aflashin’ to ensure a timely disposal of the arguments. Steve Skurka has a piece on the National Post’s Web site that neatly summarizes the case on both sides.

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When it comes to the ethics of embedding journalists, Christie Blatchford misses the big picture (again)

I spent last week working in L.A.—an experience like no other, one that could make even the most deluded dreamer crave Toronto’s low-ceilinged ambitions. On Monday, seeking to inoculate myself against the general lunacy abroad in the land, I attended a sober Memorial Day ceremony at the Los Angeles National Cemetery. And while even this event had its share of native nuttiness (among the colour guard was an outfit called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, complete with period costume and a confederate flag), I was still struck by the unironic and severe atmosphere that is central to such American commemorations. During the Pledge of Allegiance, every person present (save the odd interloper) enunciated the national creed loudly and clearly, right hand draped over heart: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

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Media commentary can still surprise

Media commentary—whether it’s Gawker, Michael Wolf, Noam Chomsky or little old indispensable me—has a tendency toward (how to put this delicately?) apocalyptic gloom mongering. But every so often there’s a bright moment that reminds you why you’d rather eat your cat than miss the morning paper. My latest reminder came on page B13 of this morning’s New York Times. Some time ago, the Times started including little editorial comments to explain the ratings of the movies they review. Beneath a glowing review (Toronto Life’s review gave it zero stars, FYI) of a thriller-horror flick titled The Strangers we find in italics the following: “‘The Strangers” is rated R (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) Coitus is interruptus and killing is not”

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Greenspan treats Eckstein like so much Radler

At the trial of Garth Drabinsky yesterday, Eddie Greenspan began his cross-examination of the Crown’s star witness, former Livent senior VP of finance Gordon Eckstein. And from all reports, it was Radler redux, as Eddie accused Drabinsky of everything short of sacking Rome. To wit, reported The Globe and Mail:

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On the hook for Conrad Black’s legal bills

There’s a thick vein of irony running through the tortuously long odyssey of United States v. Conrad Black, et al. And with the final chapter to be written June 5 (when oral arguments are made before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals), Judge Leo Strine of the Delaware Court of Chancery offers one of the richest paradoxes to date. Strine, you might remember, effectively blocked Black’s efforts to sell the Telegraph out from under Hollinger International shareholders. Regarding that case of corporate litigation, Strine wrote: “It became almost impossible for me to credit his word…. I found Black evasive and unreliable. His explanations of key events and of his own motivations do not have the ring of truth.”

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Drabinsky trial inspires various takes on the F-bomb

The word fuck had a red-letter outing in yesterday afternoon’s Web reports of the goings-on at the Drabinsky trial. All told, the king of all obscenity found its way into three stories eight times, with only the Globe daring to spell it out in full, while the Star and Post opted for the more genteel f**k.

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Livent bosses robbed Show Boat to pay Ragtime

Gordon Eckstein’s version of Livent’s accounting practices reminds me more and more each day of a punchline from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup: the Minister of Finance says, “Here is the Treasury Department’s report, sir. I hope you’ll find it clear.” To which Rufus T. Firefly replies, “Why, a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child—I can’t make head or tail of it.”

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Yanks trump Canucks on bloggish hockey coverage

OK, this isn’t exactly earth-shattering news, but if you care at all about hockey in the frozen north, it’s a bit of a head scratcher. Throughout the International Ice Hockey Federation championship final on Sunday, it was the New York Times that offered the only live blog during the game.

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Montrealer Autumn Kelly marries into the royal family tomorrow, and the press’s reaction is as classy as ringette

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What is it about the Anglo-Canadian fascination with aristocracy that puts everyone in a flap at the first sign of pretense? When Conrad Lord Black of Crossharbour was sent down for thievery, Canadian and British papers hadn’t spilled that much ink on a single story since D-Day. And this morning arrives an e-mail from the reliably snarky Andrew Clark, The Guardian’s business correspondent in NYC. He begins in typically deadpan prose: “I am rejoicing at the new link between our two nations which will be forged at tomorrow’s royal wedding. No doubt you will be glued to the BBC World Service.”

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Toronto Star editors asleep at the switch

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Star on the march—the annals of editing: in an otherwise tedious exercise in dull normal reportage (Shania Twain is getting separated blah-dee-blah), an editor at the Toronto Star (or was it a writer looking for a buyout?) inadvertently added a line for the ages. The piece appeared this afternoon on their Web site and will surely be taken down by the time you read this. In the interest of amusement and giggles, though, we’ve saved it so that future generations might know the truth.

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Today’s Livent verdict: Blue pens are very popular

As the Livent saga grinds on, the analogy I drew between Livent accountant Gordon Eckstein and Hollinger turncoat David Radler is being proven in spades—with one significant enhancement. Where Radler based his entire testimony on his recollection of a series of phone calls with the accused (Conrad Black), Eckstein is snaking his way through a positively Amazonian paper trail that leads to and from the desk of Garth Drabinsky. And, natch, it all suggests an accounting fraud that makes the shilly-shallyings of our old pal Jack Boultbee pale in comparison.

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Commission and refute: The National Post celebrates Israel’s 60th by taking on its own writer

My pal Jeet Heer wrote me last week to point out the strange treatment the National Post gave his op-ed on Israel, a piece the editors of the Post commissioned to help mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state. Knowing his views, Post editors specifically asked Heer to write a piece that would run contrary to the paper’s oft-stated position that Israel can do no (or very little) wrong. Jeet agreed—“reluctantly”—to write it in his own words. The op-ed came out last Tuesday, with preludes announcing that the “National Post editorial board” would be running an accompanying unsigned editorial “refuting Mr. Heer’s conclusions.”

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New York’s newspaper war shifts its battleground from Manhattan to Myanmar

In keeping a weather eye on the ongoing newspaper war over New York, today’s front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are instructive. The Journal, given its earlier deadlines, led with the Myanmar cyclone and, for cover art, used a map to illustrate the extent of the damage. The Times split its headlines between last night’s primaries and the cyclone, giving more coverage to the former and devoting its art to Obama and Clinton. Initially, it bothered me that the Times would give more prime real estate to a parochial political story. Then I got into their coverage and my head turned round.

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Conrad Black’s legal tormentor gets new job, salary bump

The Chicago Tribune notes today that Conrad Black’s tormentor-in-chief, Eric Sussman, has moved on to head up the regulatory enforcement and white-collar litigation practice at Chicago firm Kaye Scholer, a top-tier U.S. litigation shop. Sussman is all atwitter at his new prospects and considerable salary bump:

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Theatre puns running low among journos at Drabinsky-Gottlieb trial

This country’s most famous and fabulous theatre impresario and his long-time partner went on trial for fraud yesterday morning in a large, airy courtroom (under an enormous coat of arms featuring a lion and a unicorn and the words Dieu et mon droit) on the fourth floor at 361 University Avenue—a mere driver and a wedge from the theatres that made Garth Drabinsky famous. The setting was likely a little dull for Garth’s taste. He did look good: tan and fit in a snappy check suit, with that insane shag carpet still growing out the top of his head. There were the usual oyeh, oyeh, oyehs, followed by the introduction of the Crown and its opponents, the Greenspan brothers.

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Conrad Black’s spirits downgraded from ‘happy’ to ‘healthy’ despite attending prison seminars on American politics

A smattering of news on the Conrad Black front this morning. Last evening, Patrick Fitzgerald et al. responded to Andrew Frey’s pleading that the Hollinger four’s conviction be set aside in a 127-page brief. June 5 has been set as the date for oral arguments before the 7th Circuit with a final decision expected in the fall.

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The selective sympathies of Christie Blatchford

Christie Blatchford’s selective sympathies and predilection for men in uniform is fodder for much water cooler criticism both in and out of the scribbling trades. But in all my time observing the Globe scribe’s commentary—and particularly in view of my interest in her on-again, off-again empathy/sympathy for Conrad Black—I’ve never seen anything quite as brazen as her recent columns on Robert Baltovich (April 24) and Paul Croutch (May 1).

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Requiem for a newspaper: The Wall Street Journal falls into the Murdoch trap

Flipping the Rolodex of descriptors this morning, I pause at P for “plus ça change” and W for “waddya think was going to happen?” Rupert Murdoch has pulled the wool yet again. The Times and the Journal have been full of stories this week suggesting that the WSJ’s new owner is interfering with his newspaper’s editorial independence—first by foisting changes so that it might compete more directly with The New York Times (more politics, shorter stories), then by firing the ancien régime editor Marcus Brauchli, who wasn’t moving fast enough to make those changes. And this time, Rupe’s chinless, coupon-clipping victims (the Bancroft family) are so thoroughly bumfuzzled that it barely merits the usual blah blah blah about history repeating itself first as tragedy, then…oh, you know the drill.

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Thomson Reuters would like its employees to stop blogging, socializing

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In case you’d forgotten or ever cared, 40 per cent of The Globe and Mail is owned by the Thomson family through their holding company Woodbridge. Woodbridge also owns, as the result of last year’s multibillion-dollar merger of Thomson Corporation and Reuters, 53 per cent of the new (and aptly named) entity Thomson Reuters. Lately, this new enterprise has started rolling out its new brand, including a near bottomless, fancy-pants Web site and a full-page ad on A6 of Monday’s Globe. Here’s an excerpt from the Web site:

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Gaffe of the Week: Tory hacks caught on tape!

This morning’s on-line version of The Hill Times offers a thorough and thoughtful summary of what, for lack of a better handle, I’ll call the Sparrow’s Folly. I am referring, of course, to the ill-fated effort of the PMO’s media machine to spin the RCMP’s investigation into alleged election finance malfeasance. In events that sound remarkably like the embarrassing jokes told by your Uncle Lester after several too many at Christmas, three Torys—a flack (party spokesman Ryan Sparrow), a hack (Tory campaign director Doug Finley) and a lawyer (Paul Lepsoe)—held a secret briefing in an Ottawa hotel for selected journalists (this after changing the location to put other ink-stained hounds off the scent). They were found out, confronted by the excluded journos and forced to flee down a fire escape. I’m not making that up. Promise.

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Why not lionize Canada’s captains of industry? Here’s why

Friday’s cover story in the Globe’s Report on Business magazine is a laudatory profile of Mike Lazaridis—the co-founder of RIM Ltd., manufacturer of the ubiquitous BlackBerry. The piece tells us that Lazaridis’s personal fortune is $3.6 billion and that the company’s market value is $67 billion on revenue of $6 billion last year. Despite this, the profiler (David Fielding) never mentions the fact that RIM has been the subject of an SEC investigation into backdating stock options—hardly a small detail, considering the investigation led to Lazaridis’s partner Jim Balsillie stepping down as chairman last year. Efforts to establish whether the SEC investigation is ongoing proved fruitless. The SEC, as a matter of principle, will not comment. RIM has yet to respond to our inquiries.

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Rosie DiManno’s profoundly wacky campaign against Robert Baltovich

This past Wednesday, the Toronto Star gave Rosie DiManno space to vent her long-standing grievance with Robert Baltovich. Today I’ve asked Derek Finkle, whose book on the subject is a cornerstone of Baltovich’s public defence, to respond. Herewith is his guest blog:

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Determined to be more Toronto-centric, the Toronto Star cuts 120 Torontonians

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What with the heavy artillery in New York’s newspaper war continuing to boom and crash (the Journal’s managing editor, the unfortunately monikered Marcus Brauchli, has pitched himself over the side to leave room for Murdoch’s handpicked capo, Robert Thomson, to run the show), now might be the moment for a quick review of one of Canada’s somewhat more tepid skirmishes. The latest “news” concerns the Toronto Star’s recent round of layoffs. Included in the 120-odd who were shown the door was the entire Internet production staff. This in turn led a snarky union rep to spit back,“[The Star’s] message to the world is that they’re all dedicated to the Internet, but then they lay off the whole department.” Well, yes. Despite the element of futility after the fact, the rep’s got a point.

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Newspaper war update: The New York Times cannot be bought

Not surprisingly, Arthur Sulzberger is already up on his hind legs denying that the New York Times is for sale. Mike Bloomberg also issued a denial. That should put a stop to all those nasty rumours.

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Times 2, Journal 1: Murdoch takes a page from Conrad Black’s “The Art of Newspaper War”

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Newsweek’s latest has a mammoth take out on New York’s newspaper war. Titled “Murdoch, Ink,” the dek on the article reads, “With a redesigned Wall Street Journal, mogul Rupert Murdoch is launching an old-fashioned newspaper war against The New York Times. Not since William Randolph Hearst took on Joseph Pulitzer have we seen such a fight.” And from there on in, it’s all Rupert all the time, punctuated by a series of delicious quotes straight from the horse’s mouth.

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Bill C-10 sucks, report Ang Lee, Trailer Park Boy

Following in the footsteps of Sarah Polley’s C-10 protestations, it’s practically the march on Montgomery these days up Ottawa way. Robb Wells, better known as the comically Machiavellian Ricky on Trailer Park Boys, went before the CRTC last week to demand more Canadian content on our TV screens. While he was at it, the Star reported that he took an overdue shot at cable maven Jim Shaw, the Alberta tight-ass whose complaints about Trailer Park Boys merge with C-10 to form a nexus of idiocy.

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Conrad Black roundup: A finger, a fiction, a fallacy and a foundation

While things may be workaday at Florida’s FCI Coleman, the last several news cycles have seen an eclectic array of press coverage. It was announced over the weekend that David Chidley’s oft-printed photograph of Conrad Black flipping the bird to a gaggle of preying vermin during the Trial of the Millennial Epoch has won a Canadian award for spot news photograph of the year—trumping, I might add, 2,200 other entries. Dare I say that the photo and its recognition neatly capture the essence of our national press’s love-hate obsession with Prisoner #18330-424? We loathe and mock him. We bait him. And yet we yearn for, if not his affections, at least his attention. And God bless him: he always seems to return the favour in spades.

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Is Martin Newland’s freshly launched paper The Guardian or Pravda? They report, you decide

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Martin Newland, Ken Whyte’s former deputy honcho at the National Post and head honcho at The Daily Telegraph during the reign of Lord Black of Coleman FCI, is starting up the latest thing: a big-time daily newspaper financed by United Arab Emirates petro-dollars. The Times of London reports that:

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Dispatches from the surreal calamity of last night’s Democratic leadership debate

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Last night, in a massive Philadelphia museum devoted to the American Constitution, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hammered away at each other—gladiators in the great Democratic political contest. The debate itself, part of the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, took place in a smallish TV theatre and was moderated by ABC correspondents Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Outside that small room, though, in a massive cathedral of spin, looking out 30-foot-high windows at Independence Hall, a thousand journos banged away at laptops, murmured into microphones and adjusted their ties and blouses before the camera. This horde represented an array of newspapers, Web sites, blogs, and radio and TV stations bearing a Dadaesque constellation of acronyms from throughout the world—ABC, NBC, CBS, WLS, WLAY, WABC, WDKA, WSYR, BBC, CNN, C-SPAN—most of which were repeated out along 6th Street, where satellite trucks stretched into the distance like a futuristic trailer park and news helicopters floated above. It was American madness pure and thick, and I wandered through it, as Leonard Cohen would say, like a lost Canadian.

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Litigiously yours, CanWest

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Recently, I reported on efforts by The Wall Street Journal to buy up copies of a parody version of their publication titled My Wall Street Journal. Despite the slightly sinister implications, the whole absurd fiasco was essentially found comedy. Not so hilarious is the lawsuit against a parody version of The Vancouver Sun brought by the Aspers, owners of media behemoth CanWest. The parody satirizes the Sun’s avowedly pro-Israel editorial bent. In addition to the folks who actually produced the thing, the Aspers are going after a Palestinian activist named Mordecai Briemberg. Here’s his description of his liability in the matter:

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The Rezko affair resurfaces after testimony about Obama and Auchi

You may remember that, five weeks ago, I wondered out loud why one of Rupert Murdoch’s lead investigative reporters, The Times of London’s James Bone, was sniffing around the Chicago corruption trial of Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko. Moreover, I linked Rezko to the Iraqi-born British billionaire/Bond villain Nadhmi Auchi. Murdoch had, at one time, thrown in his lot with Hillary Clinton and I put two and two together. Now, you may also remember that hard on the heels of that post came not one but two missives from Bone asserting that, in linking his reporting to Murdoch’s political interests, your loyal correspondent was full of shit.

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What does Mosley’s Nazi sex video say about The Globe and Mail (and vice versa)?

The Globe and Mail, good grey lady that she is, has always had a difficult time reconciling the earnest, sober-sided aspect of its news coverage with the more tabloid aspect of its soft commentary and features. Regarding the latter, the Globe’s take invariably aspires to be cleverer than thou, which is to say that even while they examine the salacious undersides of life they do so with a “jaundiced” eye. But sometimes it’s difficult to keep all those balls in the air.

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Wall Street Journal’s parody paranoia proves that truth is stranger (and funnier) than fiction

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Here’s a reason to get up this morning. A who’s who of New York satire—including Richard Belzer, Andy Borowitz, Tony Hendra, Joe Queenan and writers from The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live and The Onion—has, of late, created My Wall Street Journal, a parody of its sober namesake. The front-page headline? “Bush Abolishes Death, Taxes; Move Will Benefit McCain.”

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NYC newspaper war now playing out in the Post, Observer and Vanity Fair

Over at the Department of Double Standards we find Vanity Fair media columnist Michael Wolff writing one of those self-fulfilling-prophecy pieces about how dim-witted the Sulzbergers are. The item is in the May issue and muses on how the family will inevitably sell The New York Times to Warren Buffett or the Washington Post Company or Michael Bloomberg or the highest bidder. And that whoever gets it will deserve it more than the Sulzbergers because whoever it is isn’t—how to put it?—as stupid as the Sulzbergers.

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Can Rupert Murdoch steal the thunder of Microhoo?

Whatever you might imagine Conrad Black is up to today—washing floors, dishes or laundry, mowing a lawn or teaching a fellow inmate to speak French—spare a moment to empathize with the resentment and envy his Lordship must feel at the prospects of his tormentor and vanquisher Mighty Murdoch. I’ve argued before in this space that it was Rupert who knocked over the first domino leading to the great man’s demise. This morning in The Globe and Mail, Black biographer Richard Siklos (whose sage counsel led my thinking in this regard) writes about the many complex scenarios revolving around the current Internet-based plays that will shape the broader media landscape for the foreseeable future.

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Sarah Polley warns that Bill C-10 may look good at dinner, but we’ll regret it in the morning

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Sarah Polley is in Ottawa today along with a lot of other “Canadian stars” telling the Senate to amend Bill C-10 so as to prevent Tory hacks from yanking film financing after the fact if the content bothers their constituents. Questioned on CBC-TV this morning, Polley said, “Ultimately there are gaps in the thinking here.… Of course, over a dinner party this sounded good, but when we really look at it, it really does amount to censorship…and we will stop at nothing until these provisions are dropped.”

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Sandra Martin: Superstar obituarist or Grim Reaper?

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Beryl Plumptre is dead and that matters. We know this—in part, at least—because Sandra Martin, the Globe and Mail’s lead obituarist, tells us so. Martin is part of a recent phenomenon: the superstar obituarist. Apparently, it’s been the rage in the U.K. since at least 2006, when the BBC reported that:

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Defining Darfur: Is it genocide?

Writing in yesterday’s Globe, the always engaging Jennifer Wells discussed the other politically charged movement of the moment that may disrupt Beijing ’08: Darfur. Wells interviewed Ellen Freudenheim, a consultant for a non-profit called Dream for Darfur that is dedicated to holding corporations sponsoring the Olympics accountable in light of China’s decidedly sinister involvement in Sudan.

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Conrad Black’s Homer Simpson moment

In case you hadn’t heard, timing is everything. Last November, I reported the contents of a long piece from Law.com describing in depth the diminishing enthusiasm at the DOJ for the prosecution of corporate crime. Further evidence appeared this morning by way of a page-one headline in The New York Times: “In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Crimes.” It seems that, rather than seeking criminal indictments, the DOJ is seeking to mete out justice on the cheap.

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Gaffe of the week: Stupidity is stupidity, whether you’re Tom Lukiwski or Jeffrey Simpson

One of the stranger excretions during the Lukiwski news cycle arrived yesterday courtesy the Globe’s big-foot national affairs columnist, Jeffrey Simpson. In avoiding discussing the actual issue—and the content of the tape at the centre of it, in which MP Tom Lukiwski takes a rather dim view of gay men—Simpson combines a sort of boys-will-be-boys apologia with an extended swipe at the NDP. To wit:

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Stephen Brunt and The Globe and Mail unwittingly adhere to Godwin’s Law

Page A13 of today’s Globe and Mail contains the most odious, egregious example of Godwin’s Law I’ve seen this side of the bathroom wall. Devised by Wikimedia’s current in-house counsel Mike Godwin, Godwin’s Law, in case you forgot, posits that “as a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

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The myna bird call of Barbara Amiel

Barbara Amiel’s latest pensée in the pages of Maclean’s—besides perfunctory references to her new dog and the shortcomings of Barack Obama—contains a sentence that reminded me of something I’d read before. Now, usually when my memory is jogged like this, it means Amiel is repeating something penned earlier by her own good self, since doctrinal and rhetorical inconsistency aren’t among Lady Black’s more evident sins. Not this time, however. The recollection bothered me enough that I followed my nose—and voila!

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Times 2, Journal 0: The newspaper war heats up over Tom Cruise, Bear Stearns and Murdoch’s henchman

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In a feature piece last Monday, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz offered an overview of Manhattan’s current newspaper war: The New York Times versus The Wall Street Journal. Interviewed therein was the Journal’s new publisher—former Times of London editor and Murdoch henchman Robert Thomson—who took the opportunity to aim several broadsides at his uptown rival:

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Edward Greenspon locates the cornerstone of democratic society—it was under his desk

From the sensational annals of staggering self-importance, we find Globe editor-in-chief Edward “Don’t Call Me Eddie and for God’s Sake Don’t Call Me Ted” Greenspon in an on-line town hall talking about the vital differences between blogging and journalism:

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Gaffe of the week: Harriet Harman fails to make friends, meat pies

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On the spectrum of completely absurd utterances by clearly addled politicians, this one’s off the charts. Caught on camera wandering around her constituency surrounded by cops (right in front of the police station) and wearing a stab-proof vest (thereby indicating to her South London constituents that they are in fact living in Beirut circa 1985), the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, offers the following to the BBC:

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American election predictions from Conrad Black

The Globe reported on its Web site yesterday that Lord Black of Crossharbour has sent a Dear Paul letter to Paul Waldie (the Globe’s lead Conrad reporter), assuring him that, despite his current condition, he continues to assert his stalwart, undying commitment to being, well, himself.

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“This is my life”

Whether you’re Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat; no matter how high-minded your campaign; no matter how clever your tactics; whether you’re running for parliament, city council, president, senate, congress or dog catcher—in the end, there’s only one thing that matters in electoral politics: money. And getting it—even giving it—can be pretty unpleasant (just ask Eliot Spitzer’s dad or Tony Rezko).

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Who tops the Toronto Star for Earth Hour ballyhoo? Noooooobody!

Because what I am about to say will sound churlish to even the meanest ear, I would like to begin by stating the following: I think a lot of people turning out their lights and appliances at the same time is a good idea. I prize silence and the dark as much as the next guy, so Earth Hour is, to my mind, a good thing. Still, it’s all a bit of motherhood, isn’t it (so much for the anodyne opening)? Who could possibly oppose it? For all the caveats about Earth Hour’s symbolism, one longs to spray-paint dissent on its wall of temperate virtue—but you can’t since it’s all so virtuous. Which brings me to my mean-spirited, cynical, toxic point: what in hell is the Toronto Star doing promoting Earth Hour in its editorial pages (and every other page after page after page) like one of the Lastmans braying on about Bad Boy?

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Hey, Toronto, why should we take Richard Florida’s word for it?

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A while back, my colleague Philip Preville and Toronto’s newly minted urban affairs media guru Richard Florida crossed swords over the perils and opportunities of civic boosterism in T.O. On the whole, they grudgingly agreed to disagree. Florida acknowledged that he was something of an optimist: “I have been wondering for some time now why people like Preville are so negative and insecure about what Jane Jacobs said is North America’s greatest city.” And Preville agreed that “being a negative kind of guy, I’d rather focus on problems and prod people toward solutions.” I raise all this because I spent part of the weekend traipsing around Philadelphia and came across a column by Florida in The Inquirer titled “Why Philadelphia’s economic future looks so bright.” It’s essentially a love letter to the city:

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Advice for Democrats from an unlikely place

In case you’re ever in doubt as to how much more extreme, fevered and just plain nuts the American political discourse is than our own (Flaherty versus McGuinty notwithstanding), I offer the following: This past Monday, a certain John Yoo wrote an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, complaining about the democratic party’s undemocratic practice of appointing superdelegates to their upcoming nominating convention:

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The Globe shines with Khadr coverage

In the Canadian media’s ongoing effort to cover the looking-glass war on terror, yesterday was a banner day. The Globe led with the strange case of Omar Khadr. Kirk Makin was all over the Ottawa Supremes, taking the government’s lawyers to task for essentially consigning Khadr to hell in Guantanamo, then—Pilate like—washing their hands of the entire grim mess.

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Clinton, Obama, McCain star in Sheila Heti’s presidential dream team

I’m in New Jersey at the moment, preparing to gorge myself on a revealing slice of the American political pie. Before I get started, though, I thought I’d try a Canadian appetizer—a phenomenon affecting in a minor key the political scene down here. I speak of Sheila Heti, the whimsical Toronto novelist and all-around cultural entrepreneur whose blogs I Dream of Barack, I Dream of Hillary and I Dream of McCain have generated a mountain of press down here. Heti transcribes, more or less verbatim, the nocturnal imaginings of her readers and turns them into blog posts describing dreams of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. These dreams are not of the political variety—or at least not as “politics” is conventionally understood. To wit:

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