Media Roundup: Recapping and Handicapping

The media reports, webbed overnight and this morning, on the Conrad Black trial are moving into speculation on what the outcome will be:

1. Paul Waldie has a scoop from an ex-juror, as webbed by the Globe and Mail. It comes from an interview with that former juror, Sandra Gruber, who was excused four weeks after the trial started back in April. Ms. Gruber "says she didn't see enough evidence to convict Lord Black during her time at the trial.... 'I just never thought he would be found guilty,' Ms. Grubar said in [that] interview. The case 'was pretty shaky.'" The rest of the interview deals with why she reached the decision she did, her impressions of the lawyers, and a debunking of the outside impression that the case is too complex for the jury to understand. [This same story has also been picked up by CTV News.]

2. From the "Business English" section of the Financial Times Deutchland, a column that says Conrad Black's justification for the party as in part a business expense is plausible because "schmooze parties" tend to work for the ambitious.

3. The Vancouver Sun has webbed a CP forecast that anticipates the defense resting "by mid-week." Closing arguments are scheduled to begin next Monday.

4. The Calgary Sun has webbed an abridged CP report, written by Romina Maurino, which reviews the course of the trial so far after quoting one expert, Rick Powers, to the effect that it's "very unlikely" that Conrad Black will see the inside of a jail after the trial is over.

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Bloomberg has a review of Mr. Black's latest book, Invincible Quest: the Life of Richard Milhous Nixon, written by Charles Trueheart. According to Mr. Trueheart, the biography is exhaustive and very thoroughly researched. Written in "muscular, allusive, witty and often pungent prose, Black vividly paints Nixon's determination and wile, his resilience and uncanny ability to surmount deep character flaws to succeed in a vocation that is usually merciless to introverts." Mr. Truehart, though, finds a fault, in the book trying too hard to be balanced.