Media Roundup: Careful Skimming

The overnight media reports on the Conrad Black trial were even more plentiful than yesterday's - unsurprisingly so, given yesterday's cross-examination:

1. The latest write-up by Rudolph Bush of the Chicago Tribune focuses upon the repeated admissions Gov. Thompson made, in which he said that he had only "skimmed" the relevant documentation disclosing the individual non-compete payments. It includes Mr. Thompson's self-justification for doing so: management should have specifically pointed the irregularities out to him, probably orally.

2. A mention from Chicago Public Radio's Diantha Parker, which also notes that Mr. Thompson will be back on the stand today.

3. The International Herald Tribune has webbed the Associated Press report covering Mr. Thompson's travails on the stand yesterday.

4. The New York Times has a report on the trial today; it characterizes the cross-examination of all four defense counsels, including Ron Safer's cross-examination so far, as portraying Mr. Thompson as "inept."

5. MSN Money has webbed the Financial Times' report, which starts by noting Eddie Greenspan's own characterization of Mr. Thompson's omissions as a "'remarkable coincidence'" and ends by quoting Csr. Greenspan's pivotal question, which Mr. Thompson flatly nayed, in full: "'I'm going to suggest that you read and approved the transactions and [when they came under scrutiny]…that all three of you conveniently forgot,' Mr Greenspan asserted." FT.com itself has webbed the report too.

6. From Monsters and Critics, the United Press summary of yesterday's admissions.

7. The Daily Herald's Anna Marie Kucek has a report which starts off with: "'Big Jim' Thompson was cut down to size by defense attorneys who suggested Wednesday that he knew more than he was willing to say about former Chief Executive Conrad Black allegedly pocketing money from the sale of Hollinger International Inc. assets." It relates that Mr. Thompson stuck with his story all the way through the cross-examinations, including his admission about only skimming the documents.

8. Theresa Tedesco's latest report, webbed by the National Post, begins by describing the audit committee as "substitute victims," or proxies for the alleged real ones. "But by the time the battery of defence lawyers finished with them, the committee members resembled three blind mice rubber-stamping every piece of paper put before them.... Under cross-examination, their responses sounded like excuses and finger pointing to avoid responsibility for the fact that their collective signatures are on every document approving the US$60-million prosecutors claim Lord Black and the others misappropriated from Hollinger's shareholders in the form of bonuses disguised as taxfree non-competes." The rest of the report contains a detailed recounting of the cross-examination, and ends with: "Hollinger 's shareholders aren't expected to get the chance to tell the jury what they think."

9. Patricia Best of the Globe and Mail notes in her blog column, "Nobody's Business," that Tom Bower was kicked out of the courtroom yesterday. (Theresa Tedesco herself noted it yesterday.)

10. The Globe's Paul Waldie's report includes a chilly response to one of Csr. Greenspan's questions: "'Skimming is a form of reading,' Mr. Thompson replied coldly."

11. Janet Whitman of the New York Post comes right out with it: "Conrad Black's lead lawyer [accused Mr. Thompson] and the two other ex-members of Hollinger International's audit committee of lying about their ignorance of the allegedly ill-gotten executive payouts at the heart of the fraud trial."

12. The Vancouver Sun has webbed Mary Vallis' latest, which reports that the "jury paid close attention to the former governor's testimony. One female juror turned her chair away from the gallery to directly face Thompson." It ends by quoting Mr. Thompson's justification for skimming: "Thompson testified he assumed he could trust the documents in question because they were prepared with the help of Hollinger's senior management, auditors and chief financial auditors, 'I assumed they were true and correct, and I skimmed them,' he said. 'Unless I had some reason to believe there was something incorrect in here, I would skim them.'"

13. Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star ends his report by noting that, though the defense may have won the day, they have a more difficult challenge ahead: justifying the delayed disclosure of the non-competes to shareholders through a 2002 SEC filing.

14. Michael Sneed's latest Chicago Sun-Times column mentions a request made by Conrad Black to the court's sketch artist, Verna Sadock.

15. Another Sun-Times columnist, Mark Brown, compares Eddie Greenspan to noted lawyer Dan K. Webb.

16. The Sun-Times also has a news report, written by Mary Wisniewski, which also uses the l-word with reference to Csr. Greenspan's suggestion. It ends with the observation that "Thompson occasionally seemed impatient, raising his voice."

17. Mr. Waldie's second report has also been webbed by the Globe. It passes along an estimate by Eric Sussman of how long the prosecution will continue: "We may take the full week of June 4th,'" and has another estimate of the trial's conclusion: July at the earliest. Near the end, it notes that Csr. Sussman will have an "a chance to ask Mr. Thompson to clarify some of his testimony" in redirect examination [this afternoon. The report has been updated to include some of the questioning that Csr. Safer has used this morning. One example from it: after noting that Mr. Thompson is an experieced lawyer, Csr. Safer asked, "'You understand the importance in a criminal trial who said what?...You don't recall who said what?'"]

18. Market-Day.net has a paraphrase of the United Press report, with a summation of the Chicago Tribune's coverage.