Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
The laptopped elites from three continents having descended once again on Room 1241, the mighty wattage of their hived mind was fixed most especially on the various ways and means of parsing the colour pink: “bright pink,” “hot pink,” “shocking pink,” “blazingly pink” and, in a breathtaking paradigm shift in the struggle to fathom the Radlerian neck attire, somebody even suggested “fuchsia.” Pray to God he doesn’t wear the damn thing twice.
Beyond that, reports on Radler’s first day on the stand made a lot out of not a lot. Having established the fact that he admits to committing a crime and that his testimony, leveraged though it may be by the power of the United States to incarcerate him for the rest of his natural life, will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the yadda yadda, Radler went on to mostly revisit his sepia-tinted memories of early days with Conrad Black. Today, he’ll get rather more down to business, stating explicitly the alleged criminal conspiracy in which he and Black engaged so as to defraud the shareholders of Hollinger International. Later in the afternoon, should things go according to Hoyle, Eddie gets his turn at bat, and, as Mark Steyn, chief scribe and bottle washer for Team Tubby, reports, “the real fun begins.” As for the quality of this morning’s reportage, the only real treat is the re-arrival on the scene of Richard Siklos, whose reports for The New York Times on last week’s court happenings were truncated by his having to report on the doings of Black’s other nemesis, Rupert Murdoch. As always, it seems Siklos managed to find a mind-bending irony amid the dross:
“Displaying the bonhomie with an edge that both men shared, Mr. Sussman showed the jury a tongue-in-cheek memo that Mr. Radler had sent Mr. Black and Mr. Atkinson in 2000. The memo described how ‘in an attempt to win the Hollinger “Trixter” award of the year,’ an executive who worked for Mr. Radler, Jerry Strader, had sold a small newspaper in La Porte, Ind., to two separate buyers. ‘Unfortunately, we have been caught,’ Mr. Radler wrote in the memo. ‘I will add an amount to his bonus to reflect the courage and ingenuity that Jerry displayed in the finest Hollinger tradition.’
He said on the stand that the sale to two buyers had been inadvertent.”
Beyond that, we find Dominic Lawson, a former Black lackey, spluttering on in The Independent about the injustice of it all, demonstrating more than anything British journalism’s tentative relationship with fact. To wit:
“‘Big Jim’ Thompson is revered in Chicago, but was effectively accused of being a liar by Greenspan, who demonstrated that the majestically coiffured politician had signed off on the disputed payments not once, not twice, but 11 times.”
Thompson is, to my ill-educated colonial eye, balding.
Former Associate Testifies Black Was Kept Informed [NY Times]The rat stumbles out of the blocks [Toronto Star]Black knew, Radler says [Toronto Star]Celebrating with the rich and famous over a 1993 Dom Perignon [Globe and Mail] ‘I pleaded guilty to fraud'[Globe and Mail]Black faces newest foe – his deputy [Times of London]Black’s lifelong business partner tells of efforts to boost income [Guardian]Radler: We were a team [Chicago Sun-Times]It’s up to David Radler to salvage the prosecution’s case against Conrad Black. If day one is any indication, there’s a long way to go [Toronto Sun]Radler takes the bronze in Black trial. High-profile criminal cases leave most people haggard. Not this guy [Chicago Sun-Times] Black-stabber [New York Post]’I consulted Mr. Black on any major decision’ [Vancouver Sun]This is far from a black and white case [Independent]They made me do it [Maclean’s]
Image credit: Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star
