National Post: gratuitous, cheap, salacious, depraved, malicious and grotesque

Amid the deluge of articles and columns raining down around Conrad Black’s incarceration, I was particularly struck by a weekend piece in the National Post. The authors attempt to examine, through the eyes of inmates at Coleman FCI and similar institutions, what life will be like for Black during his stay in the pen. Published under a double byline—Katie Rook and Mary Vallis—the piece makes use of correspondence between the Post and various inmates, who are, as a result, named in the paper. The information provided confirms what anyone with even a passing acquaintance with prison life would assume. Life inside is full of drudgery and marked by the ugly possibility of exploitation. Given the interest in Black’s situation, this sort of reporting is (if not exactly worthy) entirely justified. And then, out of the clear blue, this bit of nonsense: “The prisoners’ written correspondences to the Post are rife with sexual innuendo and longing.”