I carry no candle for Conrad Black and I’ve never worked for him. But his conviction on charges of fraud (albeit for raking in a comparatively trivial $3m) has occasioned another one of those interesting and illuminating differences between British and North American journalism. Without exception every British journalist I’ve talked to feels rather sorry for Lord Black of Crossharbour; without exception every American or Canadian hack seems pretty pleased that he’s come a cropper.
Doubtless there are exceptions to this general rule (after all, my sample size is pretty small in the scheme of things) but it’s striking nonetheless. The case for Black’s defense is simple: he’s a newspaper man. Black cares passionately about newspapers and, time after time, proved he was prepared to lavish time and money upon them. So what if he could be a bully and a braggart? The man had a sense of style, a certain swagger and, above all, a belief that papers matter that more than made up for his shortcomings (which, it must be admitted, included installing his loopy wife Barbara Amiel as a columnist at the Daily Telegraph).
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