As widely reported today, Lord Black of Crossharbour is stepping down as CEO of Hollinger, the multinational media company which owns a variety of high-profile titles, including the Daily Telegraph. There was an investigation of certain transactions by Black with company money that smelled fishy, due it appears, to the presence of fish.
What seems to have brought down Black is plain old-fashioned greed, but being a control-freak didn't help either -- he wanted the voice that owning all these newspapers would provide, but generally owning lots of stuff means having other shareholders -- who might not necessarily be interested in peddling the same reactionary garbage as oneself. So Conrad solved this problem by loading up on debt, because those nice bondholders don't usually ask for editorial say in return for the cash. So everything works fine -- until there's a cash crunch. Exit Lord Black. Several questions present themselves:
1. What happens to Lady Black, and her prime spot on the Telegraph's opinion page?
2. If she gets the boot, will she become the long-awaited source willing to dish the dirt on the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy? Remember, she has a good history of providing revelations.
But before these juicy questions get answered, it would be worthwhile for Lord Black's opponents to make sure he's really left. Our eyes were caught by this line from the departing statement:
The Hon. Raymond G. H. Seitz has been elected chairman of the Executive Committee of the board of directors. Ambassador Seitz was elected to the board of Hollinger in July, 2003, where he also serves on the Special Committee. He is the former U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, [other stuff involving lots of money]
That begins to describe Ray Seitz, but most definitely not the end. He was indeed the US Ambassador to the UK -- but after that stint ended, he just outright moved to London, raising questions about whose interests he was really serving as ambassador. He always took the anti-Irish nationalist position in his despatches back to the State Department, and now just seems to another very well-heeled reactionary Unionist hack. Much like Lord Black himself. The ex-Canadian installs an ex-American on the way out the door. It's not over yet.
UPDATE 17 JUNE 2006: Seitz has stayed quite a while (WSJ, subs. req'd) --
Hollinger International Inc. (HLR) said its board authorized the repurchase of up to $50 million of its common stock and elected Raymond G.H. Seitz non-executive chairman.
Seitz has been a director since July 2003 ... Shareholders at the annual meeting also approved a proposal to change the name of the company to Sun-Times Media Group Inc., which will take effect in July.