David Akin’s On The Hill

Conrad Black agreed to sell his stake today in Hollinger Inc., the Toronto-based holding company whose sole significant asset is a controlling stake in Hollinger International Inc. of Chicago. Hollinger International is the operating company which controls the The Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, and other papers.
Today's decision by Lord Black to sell caps a remarkable weekend of events. On Friday, Hollinger International — which is controlled by Black — sues Black and his associates alleging that $200-million (U.S.) was “usurped” from the company. Then on Saturday, Hollinger International fires Black from his job as non-executive vice-chairman.
Lots of ink to be spilled on this in tomorrow's papers. Dan Gillmor believes Conrad Black could be an all-time corporate malefactor.
I've got a piece on this on tonight's CTV National News and the plan tonight is that I'll be on Canada AM shortly after 8 am (9 am in Atlantic Canada andn 9:30 am in Nfld but 8 am everywhere else in Canada) talking about this. My colleagues at our online unit have a story on this up here.

Remarkable developments in the Conrad Black saga late this evening —
Today, the Globe and Mail and the Post had front page stories — front page !! —
about a judge basically ordering Black out of the kitchen while a special
independent committee ofHollinger International Inc. directors looked over
the books. Hollinger International Inc., everyone will remember, owns the
Daily Telegraph, the Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post and other newspapers. The controlling shareholder of Hollinger International Inc., which is based in
Chicago, is Hollinger Inc. of Toronto. Black is the controlling shareholder
of Hollinger Inc. So, in essence, Black holds all the marbles when it comes
to Hollinger International Inc.
And yet, late this evening, Hollinger International's executive committee fired (!!!) Blackas its non-executive chairman.
Moreoever, Black is being sued by his own company (!!!) which alleges that Black and David Radler (and companies they control, including Hollinger Inc.) “diverted and usurped” more than $200-million in Hollinger International assets.
The stories are hitting the wires now.
This scandal could swamp Martha Stewart.

This was passed my way by one of CTV's business editors:
2004 could be the year to get in on the ground floor of these mergers, sure
to be big money-makers:

• Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace
  Co. will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

• Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and
  become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

• 3M will merge with Goodyear and issue forth as: MMMGood.
• Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge
  and become: ZipAudiDoDa.

• FedEx is expected to join its major competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.
• Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell
  Honeychild.

• Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: Poupon Pants.
• Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become:
  Knott NOW!

I've been participating on the listserv of the Canadian Association of Journalists for many
years now. I've found it a great place to argue about stuff. Here's
something I posted recently in a debate that started off with one
listmember's question about the health of public broadcasters in Canada. One
response to that question contained a line that the CBC helps “mitigate media concentration” in
Cannada. That's an observation I took issue with:

My wife grew up in Nipigon, Ontario, a small pulp mill town on Lake
Superior's north shore. I grew up in Guelph, a university town in southern
Ontario. When we were kids, during the 1960s and 1970s, there was precisely
one television station in both Nipigon and Guelph that came in over the air
— CBC. I suspect it was like that across the country. If you turned on the
TV, you turned on CBC. In fact, you turned on CBC and listened to
journalists in Toronto tell you what was going on in your world, even if you
lived 1500 km away in Nipigon.

CBC wasn't mitigating any problem of ownership concentation then; it
was the problem.

Now, my children are growing up with three national television networks,
which find their way into the vast majority of homes in Canada. And where
only one is available, you can bet it will be CBC, as that is that
broadcaster's mandate. If anything, the private networks are mitigating
CBC's media dominance.

In addition to three national network television news programs, my children
can subscribe to cable (available in almost every urban setting in Canada
and, where it isn't, can choose — choose, I said, choose! — from satellite
dish companies) where you can find not only two 24-hour Canadian news and
current affairs networks but also current affairs programming produced for
and by Canada's aboriginal people. There's also ROBTV, TSN, SportsNet, and
MuchMusic, and StarTV for those who like current affairs of a particular
kind.

Didn't have that kind of diversity and choice when I was growing up, I can
tell you. Nope: It was the CBC or nothin' was on.

My children can also choose between two national newspapers, both of which,
thanks to advances in printing press technology, contain significant amounts
of news and information written by journalists in my region about my region.
Just had one when I was growing up and all you got in it was news from
Ottawa or Toronto, no matter where you lived in the country.

And the Internet — full of instant chats, photo blogs, e-mail, and Web
pages means they'll always have alternative sources to complement their
traditional media consumption.

So it seems to me impossible to say Canadians do not have a much more
diverse and rich media environment than it did when the Kent Commission was
holding its meetings and I was building tree forts in my backyard.

And it also seems a bit much to say the CBC, the country's single largest
newsgathering organization and which is still the only news provider in many
markets it serves, is helping to mitigate a problem when all these other
media assets sprang up largely to mitigate the problem that was CBC.

I say all this as an employee of a private network who nonetheless is a fan
of CBC and believes the federal government should give it more money and
strengthen its role.

As I continue to argue: We are blessed in Canada — as they are not in the
U.S. — with an independent, professional, award-winning group of
journalists who can exist and do their work largely without funds from ad
sales but which do rely on politicians for their money. This would be the
CBC but Balint should also be reminded of the great current affairs
programming that TVO does in Ontario. There
is another group of journalists who do similarly excellent work. Their bills
are paid through the sale of ads but (by and large) they rely on no
government support. Together, these groups — publicly funded journalists
and privately funded journalists can be a nice balance and foil to each
other.

What we should be doing is trying to strengthen the independence of both
kinds of those organizations. CBC should be given more money and it should
be doled out in a way that reduces the impact a capricious and spiteful
politician could have on the Corp.. Similarly, private sector media
organizations should be given the ability to become stronger as well. The
simplest way to do this would be to remove ownership restrictions on certain
private sector media assets. If the Times
of London and The Daily
Telegraph can flourish and fulfill their “national” editorial missions
even when owned by an Australian and a (nominal)
Canadian, surely The Globe and
Mail or the National Post
could continue to be just as 'Canadian” if owned by someone who is not a
Canadian.

A lot of critics of American capitalism and American society often point to the different way regular bad guys — drug dealers, bank robbers, and thugs — are treated differently than white collar criminals by the media. Local television news programs in the U.S. and sometimes in Canada, for example, will be filled with scenes of police officers roughly treating arrested persons who are too often black and often poor and often accused of relatively minor crimes. But local TV news doesn't humiliate white collar criminals in the same way. Well, for what it's worth, there are some different images filling TV screens today. My colleagues at CTV Newsnet are showing video in which former Enron executive Jeffrey Andrew Fastow and his wife are being paraded today by scores of media cameras and it's pretty clear that they're in handcuffs and have done something wrong. I suppose the images are arresting, if you'll pardon the pun, because we see so few of these kind of white collar criminals arrested and given the media perp walk. For what it's worth, regulators and police investigators are happy to oblige media requests for these kind of perp walks, even if the rich and powerful don't like it, because they believe that if the TV screen is filled with images of corporate executives in expensive suits and handcuffs, there will be a powerful deterrent effect. The Associated Press has more on the Fastow story today and also the news that Fastow could be looking at 10 years in jail for his role in the Enron affair.

Reuters reports on a study by the World Internet Project, which, among other things, dispels the stereotype of the computer geek as a loner staring into his computer screen all day. Computer geeks — and I'm proud to be part of that herd — tend to watch a lot less TV, apparently, and are avid readers of books and love to socialize. Sounds a lot like that Accordion Guy, if you ask me, or that Craphound, to name a couple of geeky types known and loved by all.

Now this is a
bit silly —

The Conan O'Brien show — to be taped shortly in Toronto – won't let
journalists from the National Post
in because it doesn't like the Post's coverage of the event.
The Post, earlier had played up the fact, in a front page story, that the
show was coming to Toronto and taxpayers were picking up the tab.
Whether or not you agree with tax dollars being paid to have New York-based
TV shows tape their segments — including, on Conan's show, “The
Masturbating Bear” — it seems awfully thin-skinned of Conan's people. And
these people work in New York? I thought those New York papers were supposed
to be tough. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome, Conan the Idiot Talk Show
Host . . .

I
blogged on this about a minute ago and immediately ran across more
discussion. So here's what I found:
Survey: Internet Grows as Campaign News Source
Reuters – Daily newspapers and nightly network newscasts are
declining as primary sources of presidential campaign news for many
Americans, says a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

This Just In: Late-Night News?
Hollywood Reporter Is Jon Stewart the new Walter Cronkite? The new
Pew Research Center report suggests that an increasing number of young
adults are getting their news from late-night comedy and talk shows.

Next Anchor is the Big Story at 'Nightly News'
USA Today NBC's Brian Williams rejects the theory that it's only a
matter of time before the Internet and cable news become the main source of
news in America. “I'm not fond of the dinosaur argument,” he says.

A
Morbid Finger on the Pulse of Politics
Washington PostIn today's cable and Internet age, says President Bush
media adviser Mark McKinnon, “the role and importance of the White House
press corps today have diminished — perhaps significantly.”

A new report from the folks at The Pew Research Project says
that the 2004 presidential campaign in the United States is notable for the
way voters/consumers are getting their information about that race and the
issues:

Television news remains dominant, but there has been further
erosion in the audience for broadcast TV news. The Internet, a relatively
minor source for campaign news in 2000, is now on par with such traditional
outlets as public television broadcasts, Sunday morning news programs and
the weekly news magazines. And young people, by far the hardest to reach
segment of the political news audience, are abandoning mainstream sources of
election news and increasingly citing alternative outlets, including comedy
shows such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, as their
source for election news.

But that's just one of several remarkable insights in this comprehensive
survey that looks at the phenomenon of Howard Dean and the Internet;
differences between Democrat and Republican media use and preferences;
perceived bias in political reporting; and much more.
Here's the chunk on bias, much of which is just begging for some followup:

A solid majority of Americans say they see a great deal (30%) or
a fair amount (35%) of political bias in news coverage generally. In
contrast with the growing perception of biased campaign coverage, this
measure has not changed markedly since January 2000 when 67% saw at least a
fair amount of political bias.
Conservative Republicans are significantly more likely to perceive the press
as biased in its news coverage than are moderate and liberal Republicans,
Democrats, and independents. This ideological difference is mirrored in the
disparate opinions among audiences of different news sources.
People who get most of their news from the Fox News are much more likely to
say the press shows a great deal of bias than are viewers of CNN, Network
news, and local TV news. People who cite radio or the Internet as their main
source of campaign news are also more likely to see widespread bias in the
media.
Interestingly, younger generations express somewhat less concern about press
bias than their elders. Barely one- in-five Americans under age 30 say they
see a great deal of media bias in general news coverage, compared with
roughly a third of those age 30 and over. More – well educated Americans
also perceive the press to be more biased than those who never attended
college.

The report says that local television news, network television news, and
newspapers are being hit hardest in this “fractionalized media environment”.
This study surveys the American media and political landscape, of course. I
wish there were some Canadian groups taking a look at this trend. I'm sure
there are, but I just don't know of them. If you can help, send me some e-mail or drop a line
into the comment box below.
Also of some note, considering the nasty war between CNN and Fox (we don't
get Fox News up here in Canada, by the way), is that the Pew Report finds
CNN is turned to more than Fox by American viewers for political news:

While cable news and the Internet have become more important in
informing Americans about the election, television as a whole remains the
public¹s main source of campaign news. When individual TV outlets are
tested, 22% say they get most of their news from CNN, 20% cite Fox, and
somewhat fewer cite local news or one of the network news broadcasts.
Mind you, the difference between Fox and CNN in this Pew poll is close
enough, it might as well be considered a tie. Pew says its survey could miss
by as much as 4 per cent points.

I'm reading Margaret MacMillan's fabulous Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World and in it, she notes that the U.S., in preparation for the peace negotiations that were to follow World War I had commissioned scholars and others to prepare more than 60 reports on the Far East and the Pacific. These reports, though, were largely ignored by the American delegates to the Paris Peace Conference. One of the reasons might have been was that these 'scholars' unearthed breaktaking conclusions like this one, on India, “A great majority of the unmarried consist of very young children.”
In a similar vein, the good folks at Ipsos-Reid (and I don't mean to pick on them but this is a little too good to resist) published a press release this week in which it announced that “online Canadians, especially young online Canadians, are embracing the Internet as a way to meet new friends and stay in touch with old friends.”