Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

As we head into day three of David Radler’s j’accuse, the battle lines along which the press wages its various campaigns are more and more deeply entrenched. Battlefield analogies are always dicey, but this really is turning into Vimy (minus the heroism). Radler, having finally—and, from most accounts, effectively—laid out the nature of the conspiracy to defraud Hollinger International’s shareholders, was the subject of the following, penned by the Post’s Theresa Tedesco, a junior partner in the public relations firm of Steyn, Blatchford and Worthington:

“Mr. Radler’s appearance on the witness stand, after the incompetent display by members of Hollinger International’s audit committee who had previously warmed the seat, looks like a strategic stroke of genius. Thanks to them, they’ve lowered the benchmark enough that even the state snitch doesn’t have to work as hard to be credible.”

The “state snitch”? The tenor of columnizing seems well on its way from fair comment to the People’s Daily circa 1967.

As the drama unfurls, other reporters seem to fall back to tried and true. The Brits, never uncomfortable in the gutter, opened the sluice gates. In The Guardian, Andrew Clark referred to Black’s son, who turned up yesterday in support of his father, as a “former underwear model.” Snide and pointless—the tabloid daily double. I could go on, but I’ll leave you instead with the following taste of genuine satire from the happy nincompoops at Frank, who this week grace us with the story of Dave and Conrad Piranha, a paean to (er, I mean, a shameless lift from) the famed Monty Python sketch of the same name .

“After one of the most stupefying trials in American legal history, the reign of terror of the notorious Piranha brothers, Dave and Conrad, has finally ended. Conrad, the tubbier of the two, has been sentenced to 4,000 years in prison and fined a gazillion dollars (U.S.) for fraud, racketeering, money laundering, more fraud, obstruction of justice, and the unauthorized use of the phrase ‘cornuted ornithorhynchus.’ Dave was sentenced earlier… Dave and Conrad Piranha were born in Montreal in 1944. Their father, George Montegu Piranha, Jr., a professional bore, had the kind of money only people named Montegu seem to have. Later, the Piranha family set up shop in a particularly knob-infested neighbourhood of Toronto, where people named Montegu were considered almost normal…”

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Longtime Partner at Hollinger Testifies He and Black Conspired to Divert Millions [NY Times]Radler takes his shot [Toronto Sun]It was Black’s idea: Radler [Toronto Star]Grilling has no sting for Radler [Toronto Star]Peer ‘told aide to skim off $12m from newspaper deals’ [Times of London]Former henchman points finger at Black [Guardian]Aide links Lord Black to secret slush fund [Telegraph]Radler spells out non-compete details [Globe and Mail]”