Media Roundup: More Bora, Less Boring

Here is a broad sample of stories about Wednesday's revelations in the Conrad Black trial:

1. From the Chicago Tribune's Rudolph Bush: highlights from Fred Creasey's testimony yesterday afternoon. Contains a breakdown of the $7 million/year corporate jet costing: $4.6 million/yr for Conrad Black's jet, and "$2 million to $3 million" per year for David Radler's.

2. From NewsMax.com, a summarization of both Angela Way's testimony and Mr. Creasey's.

3. ABC Money has a write-up that includes, at the end of it, a fuller quote from that E-mail from Mr. Black to Mr. Creasey about the Hollinger Inc. audit committee, along with a next-day softening of the message: "One day later, a contrite sounding Black sent another memo saying that his missive of the previous day may have sounded 'a bit abrupt.'" It also reports that Jack Boultbee considered the jets to be a "'reasonable business expense'."

4. Canadian Business has a brief item, which reports that there'll be more disclosures from Mr. Creasey today as his direct-examination testimony continues.

5. Andrew Clark of the Guardian reports that a logbook showing all of the flights Conrad Black made in 2001, including the vacation to Bora Bora, was introduced into testimony yesterday afternoon by questions from prosecuting attorney Julie Ruder. Also in his report: the only flight that seemed dubious to Mr. Creasey was the flight to Bora Bora; as Mr. Clark recounts, Mr. Creasey didn't quite know the precise location of it. Mr. Clark has also written a longer piece, on the difference between "not guilty" and "innocent" and what this imples for Black's life after the trial is over, for his "On America" column.

6. From the Montreal Gazette, Peter Brieger reports that Mr. Creasey "was accustomed to Conrad Black and his right-hand man David Radler running a tab of up to $10 million annually on the newspaper publisher's two private jets..." He also costs out the Bora Bora trip at a precise $565,326. His article supplies jet costs that are different from Mr. Bush's more recent Tribune piece, as do the others below which split those costs between Black and Radler.

[A more recent report by the same Mr. Brieger, in the National Post, shrinks that figure to $9 million. It's a complete summation of yesterday's testimony, and is much longer than the Gazette report. ]

7. Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail goes into detail about Mr. Creasey's testimony concerning his 2003 hunt for documentation on the non-compete agreements that are at the heart of the prosecution's case. Excerpt: "After about a week of reviewing the information, Mr. Creasey recorded his findings in a memo, portions of which were read out in court. He concluded that it did not appear that payments to the individuals had been approved by company directors. He also found that some of the underlying documents approving the payments to Hollinger Inc. had been signed by Mark Kipnis, a company lawyer at Hollinger International at the time who is also on trial. Mr. Creasey told the jury that Mr. Kipnis did not have signing authority for Hollinger Inc."

8. The New York Post has a wrap-up of Angela Way's testimony under cross-examination.

9. The Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Wisniewski's report on Mr. Creasey's yesterday-afternoon testimony includes the methodology that Mr. Black used to come up with the 50/50 split of costs for the Bora Bora trip.

10. Mark Steyn's blog entry discussing yesterday afternoon's testimony acknowledges that Mr. Creasey is the best prosecution witness so far but concludes: "As a criminal act, Bora Bora is several blades short of a grass skirt..."

11. Another report from the Globe and Mail's Mr. Waldie follows up on the Chicago Tribune's motion to have the name of the jurors released. He also reports on two other expected rulings: on a motion from David Radler's company, Horizon Communications, to quash a subpoena by the defense for it to release certain documents; and, on a motion from the defense asking that Mr. Creasey's further testimony, on the Bora Bora trip, be limited.

12. The latest, televised, report from from CBC Newsworld's Mike Hornbrook: a brief summation of the testimony of Mr. Creasey, the comptroller or "money-tracker," or "money guy," of Hollinger Int'l back in 2001. He also provided accounting services for Ravelston, the holding company that controlled Hollinger Inc., and Hollinger Int'l. Mr. Hornbrook also related that Black's own jet cost $7 million, and that Mr. Radler's cost "2 to 3" million dollars a year. There's no word as of yet when Mr. Radler will testify.

13. The Age of Australia has a report, with an extra detail about that "more concilatory E-mail" which Mr. Black wrote the day after he penned the more controversial one; the later E-mail said that "no related-party transactions were expected and that if any arose, the board would be told..."

14. The Times Online also has a report, as does the Telegraph; the latter mentions the cross-examination of Mr. Creasey at the end of it.


Also from the Chicago Tribune: a media column from Phil Rosenthal about the present circulation difficulties that the Chicago Sun-Times is facing.

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The current trial in Chicago isn't the only legal trouble that Conrad Black is facing; there's also an Ontario Securities Commission hearing on the matter of Mr. Black, et. al.'s alleged violation of Ontario securities laws. Out of consideration for the American judicial process, as this Globe and Mail report relates, the June 1 hearing, for Mr. Black, Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Kipnis and Mr. Boultbee, has been thoughtfully postponed.

If you haven't seen it already, here's a trivia exercise for you: go through the list of names at the bottom of this Regulatory Order and see how many of them you know. The Globe article above reports that the next lift-the-restriction hearing is on April 10.