My experience with journalists authorizes me to record that a very large number of them are ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest, and inadequately supervised.—Conrad Black, quoted in the Carleton Journalism Review, Winter 1979–80
He was the best friend that thousands of British, American and Canadian journalists ever had. And for this they have now turned on him. A biting of the hand that fed them, like some petulant and spoiled child laughing as a parent slips on the ice and is obviously hurt.—Michael Coren, Toronto Sun, November 4, 2006.
The fellating of Black, in some quarters, has been astonishing. One courtroom correspondent, blogging instantly as the verdicts were read out, led off his news flash with the not-guilty bits. In my business, we call this burying the lead.—Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, July 14, 2007
Once upon...
Suanne Kelman is professor emerita of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University. She is the author of All in the Family: A Cultural History of Family Life (Viking, 1998).
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