Media Roundup: Dormitive Powers

The media reports, webbed overnight and today, on the Conrad Black trial have spread out in focus, ranging from boredom to poppies:

1. A report by Mary Vallis, webbed by the Montreal Gazette, is entitled "Legal boredom might be accused's salvation." The point behind this theory is that a complex case signifies the absense of any obvious guilt, and some cause for doubt. "Legal analysts say boredom and confusion could be important factors in the jury's decision. If anyone is hopelessly perplexed in the deliberation room, the jury may be reluctant to convict. Their confusion could in itself be reasonable doubt...."

2. Another report webbed by the Gazette has a list of the lawsuits in which Conrad Black is named as defendant, as well as ones he himself has launched. There's also a mention of two lawsuits already settled out of court.

3. Yesterday's refusal by Judge St. Eve to let the jury have a part of the court transcript made item #3 in the New York Post's "Business Briefs" column.

4. A feature webbed by the National Post has an explanation of what "tall poppy syndrome" refers to: cutting off the tallest bud in a poppy plant induces the plant to grow more buds.

5. A column by George Jonas, also webbed by the National Post, starts off by noting the clubbiness of the lawyers in the trial once the presentations are over. He pegs it as: "The system celebrates itself." Most of his column, though, is devoted to reporters' bias; he concludes that the most insidious form of bias comes from treating 'balance' as an end in itself: "The worst, most misleading copy comes from journalists who genuinely try to give balanced coverage to the proposition that the moon is made of green cheese." The rest of it compares the prosecution's case to a triple-decker sandwich with three kinds of bread.

6. Rosie DiManno's latest comment on the trial, webbed by the Toronto Star, focuses upon the waiting for the verdict. She's one of the few trial watchers who complains about the recent enforcement of the rely-on-notes-and-recollections instruction.

7. An festure by the Observer's Nick Cohen starts off by contrasing the present uncertainty with the supposed inevitability of a guilty verdict as of last March. He cites Paul Waldie as "one of few journalists from Black's home country who is not hopelessly biased for or against him," and relays Mr. Waldie's prediction that the only good-odds part of the prosecution's case was the evidence backing up the obstruction-of-justice charge; the others could go either way. Mr. Cohen ends with a contrast of America and the U.K.: the former has less class envy, while the latter has less juridicial vindictiveness. He concludes that the relatively lax corporate-fraud standards in the U.K. are proving to have been quite the competitive advantage, but one gained at the risk of an all-U.K. Enron scandal hitting the City.

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Conrad Black has been mentioned as soneone whose activities have given Canada somewhat of a bad name in a Sympatico/MSN column by Dierdre McMurdy, entitled "Feds shrug as Canadian icons sold off."

The trial makes up the middle third of a Scottish Sunday Herald column entitled "The Big Bad Wolf."