Description:
Here's a twist: a newspaper baron who hates journalists. Conrad Black, the Canadian owner of several newspapers, including the London Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times, has a reputation for suing reporters who write about him and for describing the press as lazy, dishonest, ignorant, and irresponsible. Yet the man has made a fortune off of the papers he owns, catapulting him into the top ranks of media moguls. Given Black's oft-stated disdain for journalists and his litigious nature, one would have to regard Richard Siklos, the New York bureau chief for the Financial Post, as either extraordinarily brave or very foolhardy for writing Shades of Black, an up-front examination of the media magnate. Siklos explores Black's privileged background and his start in journalism. Newspapers were just one of Black's early business ventures--he also owned controlling interest in a grocery chain and in mining--but he soon saw them as a means of acquiring both wealth and power. Shades of Black chronicles Black's acquisition of struggling papers and his subsequent cost-slashing, union-breaking methods of returning them to profitability. Throughout this fascinating book, Siklos allows Conrad Black's larger-than-life personality to come through, and--love him or hate him--Black makes for great reading.
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