Sun-Times Sees Future: It’s Black
Scores of Sun-Times reporters woke up last Monday never having heard of the American Publishing Company of West Frankfort, Illinois.
In 1992 Black, who’s 49, was described in the trade magazine NewsInc. as possessing “a searing ambition, which has spilled out onto the world stage.” Hollinger already owns the Jerusalem Post, London’s Daily Telegraph, more than 280 daily and weekly papers in the U.S., and various papers in Canada and Australia. His memoir bears the tone of an arrogant, self-amused rich kid who courts the powerful because he likes to mix with people almost as smart as he is. Describing lunch with Margaret Thatcher he recalls flattering the prime minister on her “revolution”: “‘What were the decapitation of Charles the First or the deposing of James the Second compared to what you have done?’ She patted me indulgently on the forearm and said, ‘That’s very good. Do come back, won’t you?’”
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And here is Black on micromanagement: he learned his properties “could be successfully managed by recourse to careful and constant electronic monitoring of payroll, advertising and circulation, which had not been possible until recently, and by maintaining a flying squadron of fixer-counsellors, who travelled around between the centres on our airplane, encouraging, advising, imposing controls or conducting surgery, like frontier marshals.”
Two years before they bought it the Sherbrooke Record was losing nearly $10,000 a month, Black writes. Within a year it was making up to $15,000 a month. In 1981 Radler was asked by the Royal Commission on Newspapers what they’d contributed to journalism. He replied, “The three-man newsroom, and two of them sell ads.”
But it’s a Democratic paper! Enchin said to Black after the sale was announced. Black replied, “You’ll be perhaps astounded to hear this. But I have no problem with the Democrats. I think the Democrats are a great party. The great political hero of my youth was Roosevelt. I thought he was a true savior of capitalism.”
Womanews was invented by senior editor Colleen Dishon as “a mini paper within a newspaper–just for women . . . all women 18 to 65 and over.” We’re quoting a report made by Dishon herself after Womanews was up and running. She told us this week that women “wanted affirmation that they were more important than just mothers or wives. The news column was stories about ordinary women around the world. You got the idea ordinary women could make a difference.”
