Almost a decade ago, we had a short conversation with a sales manager at a competing publication about a new guy who was coming to town. His name was Conrad Black.
At the time, Black was seen as a hero by some in the publishing business. The sales manager was smitten with his new boss, but the plundering he suspected would take place in this region to his firm’s advantage never came to pass. We recall speaking and writing quite positively that even little guys would have a chance as high flyers came to town. Years later, our rationale appears to have worked out.
Most startling to us, though, was the manager’s embrace of an old anecdote about Black and his right hand man, David Radler, counting chairs in the Newsroom. By the end of the day, there would be fewer chairs – and fewer staff. It was seen as management by stealth and, remarkably, was admired by our old colleague.
Years later, that sales manager is gone, and new proprietors have settled into the marketplace. And Black, along with several colleagues, is going to spend some time in prison for business activities that did not meet with a jury’s approval stateside. How times and fortunes change.
Looking back at the rapid expansion of Black’s public companies and their demise in recent years, we glean an insight we hope to remember while in business. There is little earned in business when it comes at the expense of others.
Biographies will do a far better job of chronicling Black’s years in business. Some readers still remember Massey Ferguson, Dominion Food Stores, and other businesses that helped get Black’s company sailing. Both companies, which we dare say were national institutions, have now morphed into something else, or ceased business.
The Newspapers Black traded like pawns on a chess table are also not what they once were. Circulations generally have declined, ad revenues have declined, and in a very general sense Newspapers have lost ground due to changes in medium availability. Companies with vision have embraced the new ways, and many are finding success in parallel businesses. We personally wonder whether that cataclysmic change would have been so great if the country’s best Newspapers had not had their Newsrooms gutted. That, perhaps, is an intellectual argument best saved for communications professors in the future.
But this notion of heroes, whether it is in the business community, politically, or in celebrity circles is troubling, and it seldom comes as a shock that very few of them truly deserved adoration.
While average people might not fly as high as the stars and globetrotters, there are plenty of them who work quietly, without fanfare to enrich those around them. Regrettably, true heroes are not generally noticed or thanked as often as they should be.
