This may be about more than the money. Hollinger International is selling off all but one of its major Canadian newspapers, and it could be the deal that finally punches Conrad Black’s ticket into Britain’s House of Lords.
Hollinger is selling off 149 daily and weekly newspapers, 85 trade publications, and various Internet properties to CanWest Global Communications, in a deal described by one of those newspapers, the Vancouver Sun, as “the latest in a host of North American mergers and acquisitions aimed at converging information from print, radio and television into one dominant Internet-based platform.”
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That’s a thumbnail description of the future of journalism, which is being invented on the fly. As Israel Asper, executive chairman of CanWest, told reporters, “We don’t intend to be one of the corpses lying beside the information highway.”
Publisher David Radler’s position has been that no one will pay what the Sun-Times is worth. Radler is president of Hollinger International, which–at least until the other day–clung to the heartening view that newspapers are worth plenty, that TV, not the inimitable daily, has much to fear from the on-line services that mimic it. “No one can predict when the collective wisdom will cease to regard newspaper companies as an endangered species,” Black advised restive stockholders in this year’s annual report. “Neurotic concern about the future of even well-managed companies in this industry will subside eventually.”
But as he spoke, his paper’s leadership was changing. It seemed surprising in May that Hollinger would replace Wade with Cooke and “vice president of editorial” John Cruickshank before the redesigned paper Wade had been overseeing was introduced. It’s not surprising now. The new design was predicated on the up-and-running new presses to do it justice, and Hollinger knew there was no way Reason’s design would debut in September, when it was supposed to, or for months thereafter. That being the case, Wade’s successors deserved an opportunity to put their own stamp on the paper’s exterior.
“That’s possible,” says Cooke.
Lacava applied to Wade for the Sun-Times commission and didn’t get it. But when Cooke and Cruickshank took over, they were given to handing Reason tear sheets from the National Post and asking him to do something on the same order. Lacava’s beyond reach now. She’s across the street, on assignment for the Chicago Tribune.
