Shades of Black: Conrad Black and the World's Fastest Growing Press Empire, A Signed Copy

Siklos, Richard

ISBN 10: 0433397497 / ISBN 13: 9780433397496

Published by Reed International Books, 1997

About this Item

Signed by the Author on the title page, this copy is tight and square with a clean unmarked interior.W.

Seller Inventory # 0043481

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shades of Black: Conrad Black and the World's Fastest Growing Press Empire, A Signed Copy
• Publisher: Reed International Books
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0433397497
• ISBN 13: 9780433397496
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author

About this title

Synopsis

In 1985 Conrad Black was a 40-year-old financier with a passion for publishing and a string of corporate coups and controversies behind him in his native Canada. With military precision, Black set about acquiring newspapers and the influence that goes along with them, amassing in just three years interests in more than 300 titles. This book presents the inside story of Black's relentless quest to become the world's leading press baron.

Review

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.