Media Roundup: Columnist Views

The media reports, webbed overnight and today, about the Conrad Black trial are still few in number. Most are columnist's pieces:

1. From the London Free Press, columnist Michelle Mandel discusses the portrayal by the prosecution of Conrad Black as the "Lord of Bling."

2. In her latest report, Janet Whitman of the New York Post has picked up on a point that a more partial journalist [guess who] is known for: "After 10 weeks of testimony and five key witnesses, prosecutors have yet to put one victim on the stand who would tell of being defrauded by this one-time press baron." After reviewing the inadequacies of the prosecution's case, she concludes: "While no one can accurately read how a jury is leaning, there's a palpable feeling in the courtroom that few are ready to convict Black. And the defense won't begin its case until later this week."

3. Another Sun Media columnist, Mark Bonokowski, discusses the connection between Conrad Black and recently murdered philanthropist Glen Davis: the latter's father, Nelson Davis. After a profile of the older Mr. Davis, which includes the note that his son was adopted by him, Mr. Bonokowski adds the life-changing event that turned the younger Mr. Davis into a philanthropist: a brush with death in a 1983 plane crash.

4. The latest from Romina Maurino, as webbed by Canoe Money, starts off with a forecast of the defense's strategy: arguing that the prosecution is attempting to criminalize normal business practice in the newspaper industry, or "that the embattled media mogul behaved like any other media executive when he took disputed payments and is in no way the criminal prosecutors have depicted." Her report quotes several experts, including one who notes that Mr. Black may come off better on the stand than expected because of how he's been anchored in the minds of the jury. Conrad Black's already been portrayed by the prosecution as something close to the Devil incarnate, so merely acting like a normal witness would make him look quite credible by comparison.

----------

The Chicago Sun-Times has a profile of another well-known figure in trouble with the law in Chicago: R. Kelly, who has also secured Edward Genson as defense counsel. It centres on Mr. Kelly's lyrics.

If...er, "exotic" opinion pieces are your cup of Sunday tea, then the Lebanese paper Dar Al-Hayat has a piece of writing you might be interested in poking through. It appears under the byline of a fellow by the name of Jihad el-Khazen, and it's about the recent decline and fall of the neoconservative movement. Both Conrad and Barbara Black have a mention in it, to wit: "And let's not forget the trial and humiliation of Conrad Black, former owner of the Telegraph group and the fourth husband of the Likudnik witch Barbara Amiel. May he rot in jail and may she lose all her ill-gotten jewellery along with her teeth."

To get back to something approximating normalcy, Mark Steyn watchers will be interested to know that he's placed a column in the Sun-Times. No, it has nothing to do with either Conrad Black or any criminal trial (although he does linger on an unusual paternity suit.)