Conrad Black goes where media barons fear to tread

Black was convicted last week in US Federal court of mail fraud and obstruction. Prosecutors brought 13 charges, including racketeering. Black was convicted of the four lesser counts, which still might result in 15 years jail time. His loyal supporters claim he was guilty only of being a bit arrogant. Hollinger International shareholders think he was a thief. His lawyers are planning an appeal.

Among other tidy gestures of insolence, illegal claimed prosecutors and upheld by jurors, Black paid himself a tidy non-compete fee to not compete with a company he also owned. And then there was that videotape showing him hauling boxes of paper out of his Toronto office.

Hollinger International no longer exists, renamed on Black’s exit the Sun-Times Media Group. Hollinger once owned The Telegraph Group (UK), sold to the Barclay Brothers, the Jerusalem Post, now owned by Mirkael Tikshoret and CanWest, and hundreds of US and Canadian newspapers. The surviving Sun-Times Media Group owns the Chicago Sun Times and two dozen suburban Chicago newspapers.

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Excess convicted Conrad Black long before the Chicago jury. He spent lavishly, charging off to one company or another: parties, jets, mansions and diamonds. Then, too, there was Peerage, hard to explain to a Midwest American jury, though American Tories swooned.

Late Friday the British Conservative Party removed his right to sit in the House of Lords, though he rarely has. In 2001 Black renounced his Canadian citizenship to accept the peerage and reinventing himself in true entrepreneurial spirit became Baron Black of Crossharbour.

Moguldom once required maturity in the extreme, and an occasional touch of philanthropy. American John Kluge, though less than an active dealmaker, just gave $400 million to Columbia University. He’s 92. Serge Dassault, a mere 82, still wheels and deals and dabbles in French politics. Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone is 84 and regularly adjusts the deck chairs. Conrad Black is a mere 62. Given time off for good behavior he might get out of jail before he turns 80.

Weather Channel owner and newspaper publisher Frank Batten (80) gave $100 million to the University of Virginia. Ted Turner (69) famously gave $1 billion to the United Nations Foundation. Silvio Berlusconi (71) bought a gift for himself: Italy.

Media moguls are often quoted and rightly so. Arnaud Lagadère told the world last year “the daily press has ten years left.” Along the same theme, Rupert Murdoch said,”The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.” The late Australian publishing and broadcast baron Kerry Packer opined, “I don't want to be left behind. In fact, I want to be here before the action starts.”

Conrad Black is most quotable for raging on riches and entitlement. “I'm not prepared to re-enact the French revolutionary renunciation of the rights of nobility,” he wrote in an email to colleague Peter Atkinson and reported in the Financial Times. “We are proprietors after all, beleaguered though we may be.” On another occasion he said “I made 50 million bucks yesterday. That’s a flameout I could get used to.”

Many media moguls reached mogul status the old fashioned way, inheriting from fathers or grandfathers. Australia’s James Packer is the son of the late media mogul Kerry Packer. Serge Dassault inherited the business from his father. Arnaud Lagadére worked that legacy magic. James Murdoch will need, bluntly, divine intervention.

Conrad Black will not be counted among the illustrious, even in fraud. His crimes were less overreach – as with Enron and WorldCom – and more pure greed. Former Hollinger International shareholders will chase his assets. He will, sooner or later, don the famous orange jumpsuit and proceed to a US prison for several years. Though a supporter of right-wing causes, he will not likely benefit from a Presidential pardon. As his Friday the 13th court appearance drew to a close he handed his passport to the judge. Prosecutors fear Lord Black might simply retire to Canada or Paraguay to escape the creditors and the jailers.

Philosophers have measured excess through the ages. “To go too far is as bad as to fall short,” Confucius warned. Far more recently Jean Baudrillard groused; “We are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence (growing abnormality).”

Excess, though, is also an antidote for dulling moderation, say great writers. “Ours is a culture based on excess…the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life…conjoin to dull our sensory faculties,” wrote Susan Sontag.

We love our media moguls and press barons because they show no fear and tread where mere mortals will not or cannot go.

John Malone, a true media mogul with investments in five out of six cable TV connections in America through Liberty Media and in 12 European countries through Liberty Global, portrays the very antithesis of Conrad Black’s excess. Malone lives in Denver, in the American West, drives his own camper and generally shuns interviews. One he granted to author Ken Auletta in 2002 showed – poignantly for present events – the one fear shared by media moguls.

“What you really are afraid of is that you're competing against somebody who is rich and irrational,” Malone told Auletta. “I mean, it used to be a given, a saying in the industry: Don't ever bid against Rupert Murdoch for anything Rupert wants, because if you win you lose.”

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Conrad Black goes where media barons fear to tread – jail

Media moguls, tycoons and barons lead a charmed life. Being one means never having to carry your own suitcase. Former Hollinger International Chairman Conrad Black never knew excess he couldn’t exceed. For him, those days are over.