By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--May 16, 2019
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Canadian-born media mogul Conrad Black, awarded a full Presidential Pardon by President Donald Trump today, has long been the hero of my lifetime.
“When my assistant said there was a call from the White House, I picked up, said “Hello” and started to ask if this was a prank (suspecting my friends in the British tabloid media), but the caller spoke politely over me: “Please hold for the president.” Two seconds later probably the best-known voice in the world said “Is that the great Lord Black?” (Conrad Black, National Post, May 15, 2019) “I said “Mr. President, you do me great honour telephoning me.”“He could not have been more gracious and quickly got to his point: he was granting me a full pardon that would “Expunge the bad rap you got.” He had followed the case closely and offered to come to give evidence at my trial in Chicago in 2007 on one of the counts (I was acquitted of that one). He said that there would be some controversy, “But you can handle that better than anyone.” I asked “Do you authorize me to say that your motivation is that it was an unjust verdict?” He checked with the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who was in the room, if this would be a problem legally, and was told and affirmed to me that I could say that was his motive and that he was reversing an unjust verdict.”See White House Presidential Pardon here: During his well-known tangle with the U.S. District Court in Chicago, I considered Black as “The Man Who Knew Too Much Who Could Write About It Better Than Anyone Else”. I first met Conrad Black on his August 25th birthday in 1993. The media baron had contacted me for my research help for a speech he was writing for presentation at the Canadian Club. “You must have plenty on file about some of these malcontents”, he said of the investigative Toronto Free Press (TFP), the feisty forerunner to Canada Free Press.(CFP) “As I sat trying to keep my teacup from clattering against its saucer, Black was giving his attention to a broken fax machine. Unaware of it, his school age son, clad in pyjamas was standing with gaily-wrapped presents behind his back. (CFP, March 29, 2004)
“When I mentioned that the lad was waiting, Black stopped trying to repair the fax to open the "surprise" birthday gifts, which included what appeared to be a water pistol and a rubber duck. "Do you really, really like them?" the boy asked his father after he opened them. "I particularly like the rubber duck. You have no idea how lonely daddy gets in the bathtub," he answered the beaming youngster. “The little domestic vignette told me that Conrad Black owned a great sense of humour and was a wonderful father. His future kindness to an obscure newspaper owner made him the personal hero of my life.”The slings and arrows of the malcontent leftists were aiming at Black even back then.
"Black also has fans in the journalistic community in Canada, where his audacious 1998 launch of the right-of-center National Post sent the industry scrambling. 'The Globe and Mail made it seem as if the impetus of the paper was to effect a coup of the national government,’ says Ken Whyte, the editor of National Post from its launch until April of last year. 'But I think we proved there were a number of Canadians who felt themselves ill served by newspapers that were center or center left.’ While some decried Black’s creeping influence in Canadian media (he once owned 60 of the country’s 105 daily newspapers), most journalists will admit he raised overall editorial quality–and reporters’ salaries.” (CFP) "Before your time in journalism is done, take pains to ask disinterestedly any human being who knows (Black). You will learn that he is extraordinarily learned, profoundly instructed, modest in demeanor, eloquent in speech and in kindness," conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in a letter to the New York Observer. (CFP)
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“The front page headline of our 10th anniversary issue declares, ‘We made it!’ We would never have made it without the inspiration of the editor’s personal hero Conrad Black, whose kind words of encouragement in a letter written in January of 1994 kept us determined to go on, no matter how rough the going. Mr. Black’s words, ‘It is a useful service you perform and I would be distressed if there were any cloud over your ability to continue it,’ will forever be my main source of inspiration” (CFP)Thank You, Conrad Black because without you there likely never would have been a Canada Free Press
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