A Life in Progress

Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Key Porter Books Limited, 1993. F. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. v, [1], 522 pages. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Minor bending to a few early pages. Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, KSG (born 25 August 1944) is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher and author. He is a non-affiliated life peer. He is also a convicted felon who served 42 months in a Florida prison for fraud and obstruction of justice. Black controlled Hollinger International, once the world's third-largest English-language newspaper empire, which published The Daily Telegraph (UK), Chicago Sun-Times (U.S.), The Jerusalem Post (Israel), National Post (Canada), leading newspapers in Australia and Canada and hundreds of community newspapers in North America, before controversy erupted over the sale of some of the company's assets, after Black determined to reduce involvement in the newspaper industry as the threat of the internet loomed. In 2004, prosecution of Black began in the United States. Over $80 million in assets were initially alleged to have been improperly taken and/or spent by Black, although the amount alleged by prosecutors was subsequently reduced to $60 million at trial. He was convicted of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in a U.S. court in 2007 and sentenced to six and a half years' imprisonment. In June, 2010, the United States Supreme Court significantly weakened the "honest services" law that was central to Black's fraud convictions. As a result, in 2011, the appellate court reversed the two fraud charges based on the "honest service" charge and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing. This is an autobiography of the newspaper proprietor who, from small beginnings in Canada, now owns newspapers on four continents, including the once-ailing "Daily Telegraph" in London. It tells of Black's youth in Quebec and Ontario, his early interest in history and his first forays into newspaper takeovers. He offers a full account of how control of the "Daily Telegraph" was bought from the Berry family and he also reflects - both professionally and personally - on where he stands as he approaches 50. This work does not anticipate the turns his life subsequently took.