Black paper
As has been threatened for months, Conrad Black has launched his new “national” daily newspaper, the National Post. The line-ups to buy it at Elkhorn, Eatonia and Etzikom were notably absent.
I dutifully read the paper when it arrived as part of the Saskatoon daily package. Since Black owns newspapers across the country, he can make use of local circulation departments to promote sales of the Post.
The Post is an above-average Toronto newspaper. If the financier can garner even five percent of Torontonians as subscribers, he can pay his bills. So he can’t ignore Toronto news. But if he wants to successfully compete with the Globe and Mail as a national newspaper, he must attract readers in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Montreal and Halifax.
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Conrad Black spent the first half of his life amassing money and now is devising means to use that money to achieve some social ends he sees as necessary.
The focus of political strategy recently has been to destroy the image of the leader in power. The technique involves looking for unsavory chapters in the leader’s track record. If nothing concrete is found then something is manufactured, i.e. Robert Stanfield eating a banana or Joe Clark losing his luggage.
Black saw the power of the press in reflecting these ploys by party hatchet men. Power he understands, and through his purchase of an important share of daily newspapers in Canada and abroad he takes on the role of a power broker.
He’s one broker who isn’t liable to go broke, even though he doesn’t attract subscribers in Elkhorn, Eatonia and Etzikom.
