Crossharbour, until yesterday Prisoner No. 18330-424, has made his escape from the slammer after serving 28 months of a 61/2 year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice. He will be out on bail pending appeal of his conviction, and in a Chicago court yesterday, Judge Amy St. Eve set rather lenient terms for him -- a $2 million unsecured bond -- although he won't be able to leave the United States.

She turned down his lawyer's request that he be allowed to live in Canada, in one of the few homes he has left, a heavily mortgaged pile in Toronto's exclusive Bridle Path. But she did agree to let a friend bail him out. American businessman Roger Hertog, one of the investors who teamed up with Black to launch the now-defunct New York Sun newspaper in 2002, put up the two mil. Conrad, according to this story in the Globe and Mail, has run out of that kind of chump change and needs every penny to pay for his own legal bills.

The last time Judge St. Eve granted Conrad bail, it was $20 million -- a sign of just how far down in life the former media baron has dropped.

When he gathered up his things and walked out of a federal minimum-security prison in Coleman, Fla. (close to Disney World), he embarked on his most challenging and outrageous role yet -- as aggrieved victim of America's arbitrary, corrupt justice system.

He won support last month when the U.S. Supreme Court significantly narrowed the interpretation of a key legal theory used by the prosecution to secure his conviction for fraud in 2008. It said his jury received improper instructions, and sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for review. For the first time, legal observers say he could beat the whole rap.

We need to remember that the fraud case against Black focused on $6.1 million that he allegedly skimmed from his company, Holinger International, by getting a compliant board packed with his friends to approve "non-compete" payments and the sale of some of their newspapers to Black for as little as a dollar each. We also should remember that he was caught red-handed obstructing justice, when an after-hours security camera captured him and his chauffeur taking evidence out of his Toronto office by the boxload.

Another Canadian media baron, the late Ken Thomson, once told British author George Tombs (who wrote Robber Baron, an unauthorized biography of Black) that "Things will end very badly for Conrad. He has taken far too much money out of his company. He got greedy, and he will pay for it."

The bad ending may still happen. Besides the cost of appealing his conviction, Black also faces a multimillion-dollar battle to defend himself against charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He is also facing allegations from the Internal Revenue Service that he owes $70 million in unpaid taxes and penalties.

Little remains of the media empire Black once controlled before he was forced out in 2003. His newspapers once reached a combined 4 million readers a day. But the flagship Telegraph of London has been sold and his core U.S. holding, the Sun-Times of Chicago, fetched just $5 million in 2009. Canada`s prestigious Southam chain, which he bought, fattened up and sold at a profit to the unfortunate Asper family, has just emerged from bankruptcy protection under new owners.

Black's days as a tycoon are over. As one of his old friends, Hal Jackman, points out, "Ì don't think people will line up to give him $100 million to buy a newspaper company." He will likely spend his time preparing for court, writing a second volume of memoirs and perhaps toiling away at a trade that his plundering of newspapers, and the layoffs that helped pay for it, have made increasingly chancy.

Freelance newspaper columnist.

Since then, the country's two largest newspaper companies -- CanWest (in 2007) and Sun Media (this month) -- have pulled out of CP and that has triggered a radical restructuring that threatens the future of the 93-year old co-operative.

Under the plan announced this week, CP would be reborn as a for-profit company owned by CTVglobemedia, publisher of The Globe and Mail, Torstar Corp., publisher of the Toronto Star, and Gesca, which owns LaPresse in Montreal.

So Canada's only national news service, which was launched by public-minded publishers in 1917 to bring news of the First World War to all Canadians, would fall under the control of a few large newspapers in Ontario and Quebec. Worse, they would be free to walk away from it at any time, if they fail to win pension and wage concessions from the union representing more than 250 employees.

"We have been presented with no guarantees," the Canadian Media Guild said in a statement. "This would offer no stability to employees, the pension plans or the institution of our 100-year-old news service."

I, too, wonder how viable the new entity will be. How many newspapers and broadcasters will be interested in belonging to a news service that will suffer such a significant loss of its ability to collect news from all regions of Canada? The bulk of news does not happen only in a few large Eastern cities.

To survive, CP's new owners will need to convince the federal government to offer them a 13-year reprieve to pay off the $34 million shortfall in CP's pension plan. Federal legislation allows companies five years to pay back the pension contributions they owe, and industry analysts say a 13-year reprieve would be unprecedented and unwise.

The potential new owners of CP, don't forget, include some of the wealthiest families in the country, the Thomsons, the Honderichs and the Desmarais. None are promising to put any of their own money forward to replenish CP's pensions.

We don't need these owners holding such a venerable and needed institution hostage.

Here is what the Senate committee said about the importance of the news service: "If The Canadian Press or comparable wire services no longer existed, small independent news organizations would be less able to cover international, national and, at times, even regional stories. This would be detrimental to the existing diversity of news voices in Canada. The Commitee urges subscriber/shareholders to continue support for Canada's only national news service."

Just how far Canada's corporate sector is from recognizing diversity as a core business value was evident in yesterday's Globe and Mail.

A special section with the unfortunate headline "Celebrating our own" presented the Top 40 Under 40 award-winners. Labelled "a new generation of young leaders," their pictures and profiles covered eight pages and the back page of the Globe's Report on Business section.

The Globe is a partner in the annual competition, organized and run by Caldwell Partners International, a head hunting company. Other partners are Deloitte, National Bank Financial Group and Westjet.

Of the 40 young entrepreneurs chosen for future promise, 35 were men and 33 were white. It is hard to imagine that the list of 1,100 nominees could be that unrepresentative of the demographics of Canada's population under the age of 40.

So why were they chosen? Well, look at who did the choosing -- 25 senior executives, a group that included only three women, no visible minorities and one Aboriginal. It appears that they merely chose a reflection of themselves.

This isn't good enough. It was published the same week as DiverseCity Counts was released. It's the second annual report of diversity in the Greater Toronto Area's major public institutions and largest corporations. More than 40 percent of the region's population is non-white, yet in the largest corporate sector companies, visible minorities accounted for only 4.8% of senior executives and 3.3% of board members.

So where are the leaders of the future going to come from to change those dismal figures? How will they emerge if they're not recognized now?

If I were those readers, I would be very, very angry. In a $1.1 billion stroke, the leading newspapers in cities like Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal have fallen into the hands of a faceless gang of financial bottom-feeders. We don't know who they are, but we know what they want. As corporate vultures, they want to wring the last round of profits from a declining industry before someone starts closing them down.

The proceeds from the sale will be used to pay off approximately $925 million in debt owed by Canwest Limited Partnership, which owned Canada's largest chain of big-city dailies and the National Post. The newspaper division filed for creditor protection in January after missing interest payments on about $1.5 billion in debt. At that time, the secured group, led by the country's biggest banks, sought a sale of the chain and its related new media properties to recoup the $925 million they are owed. They are the only winners in this deal, actually managing to earn all their money back from a disastrous decision to lend former CanWest boss Leonard Asper loads of money to run newspapers, a business he did not know and wasn't very good at.

The new owners are a coalition of about 20 U.S. and Canadian financial institutions consisting of private-equity and hedge-fund firms. The biggest is New York-based Golden Tree Asset Management, which owns about $150 million of the publishing division’s debt. Collectively, the group owned about $450 million, or just under a third, of Canwest's overall debt. The group is fronted by Paul Godfrey, who earlier in his career fattened up the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers before selling them at a healthy profit to Quebecor.

Instead of walking away with nothing for its investment, the group is betting another billion on two scenarios -- that Godfrey can turn things around, and that a public offering of shares can recoup the money the group had to lay out.

The bid means that the Canwest chain will remain intact, including the money-losing National Post, at least for now. But the pledge of no layoffs or selloffs will probably not last much beyond the summer. Financial institutions don't put out that kind of cash and wait very long for some return.

A major component of the strategy is front-man Godfrey, an executive whose acumen and experience in the newspaper industry extends back decades. Media quoted the 71-year-old executive steadfastly resolving that the chain — and newspapers in general — have much room to grow, but there are new realities to be embraced.

"We’re going to have to do business a little bit differently," Godfrey explained. "Newspapers are in a transition to the digital world . . . and the chain will be digital-first newspapers."

Digital ad sales represent under 10 per cent of the $1 billion or so the Canwest Limited Partnership took in revenues last year. Godfrey says he would like to see revenues from digital operations increase to about 25 per cent.

These are lofty goals, Godfrey concedes, but attainable with the right management team that he has yet to finalize. On the other hand, CanWest has long owned the  most popular news website in the country, Canada.com, and hasn't managed to make money out of it.

In 1996, Godfrey led a $411-million management buyout of what was then Toronto Sun Publishing Corp. The deal proved wildly successful for its backers, but less so for readers.

A portion of the company was sold just over a year later in a deal that valued the chain at $534-million, then the whole works was taken over by Quebecor Inc. for $983-million in 1999. Along the way, Godfrey helped squeeze out the heart and soul of the Sun chain, the late publisher Doug Creighton, and slashed jobs in the newsroom. Readers began to drift away in droves.

CanWest publishes 12 daily newspapers, most of which dominate their local markets, along with the National Post, which gives the chain its presence in Toronto. If the economy continues to rebound, analysts project these papers will churn out $200-million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (or EBITDA) next year. Publicly traded newspaper chains are currently changing hands at five times their forecast EBITDA, which put the entire stable of CanWest papers in the $1-billion range, which is what it sold for.

The losing bid, by Toronto-based Torstar, was substantially lower. Torstar president and chief executive David Holland said: "We took a long, hard look at this opportunity. In the end, the successful price as well beyond what we were prepared to pay. We wish the new owners well."

The sale, if approved, marks the loss of the Asper family’s last hold on the media empire founded by the late Izzy Asper with a single Winnipeg TV station in the mid-1970s. It is believed that Leonard Asper, the second-oldest son of Izzy, who assumed the role of CEO in 1999 but stepped down earlier this year, had prepared a competing bid but failed to reach the final stage of the sale.

That, my friends, is the only good news in this sad affair.

An important victory for investigative journalism has just been won in Quebec, but most journalists probably overlooked it.

That's too bad, because it demonstrates that good journalism can sometimes be found in unlikely places and that "public interest" and "responsible journalism" are increasingly being recognized by the courts in Canada.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Catherine Mandeville sided with the Montreal publisher of The Epoch Times, a small newspaper serving the Chinese community, which was sued for defamation by the publisher of a rival paper, La Presse Chinoise.

A series of Epoch Times stories examined the publisher, Crescent Chau, and how he managed to publish 100,000 copies of four special editions of his newspaper and distribute them free of charge in Chinese communities across Canada. La Presse Chinoise usually circulates a mere 4,000 copies, sells them for 60 cents each, and limits distribution to Montreal and a few copies to Ottawa.

The special editions carried no advertising or news, just articles denouncing and calling for the elimination of Falun Gong, a spiritual group that has been violently suppressed in China since being outlawed in 1999. The articles repeated the Chinese regime's most malicious, unsubstantiated charges against Falun Gong practitioners -- that they engage in bestiality, vampirism, murder and suicide.

Chau sued The Epoch Times for libel, asking for nearly a quarter million dollars in damages.

The Epoch Times, founded in 2000 by practitioners of Falun Gong, examined Chau and his business and wrote a series of investigative articles that suggested he was acting on behalf of Beijing. The articles appear to be thoroughly and professionally reported, which isn't always the case in the often under-resourced ethnocultural press. Epoch Times reporters interviewed a former Chinese diplomat who offered insight into Beijing's influence over overseas media, and reviewed Chau's own public statements and testimony made before the European Parliament and U.S. House of Representatives.

Justice Mandeville ruled that the paper acted in the public interest and its articles expressed "legitimate concerns and constitute an opinion which is drawn from a factual premise and not made for the purpose of abusively attacking the reputation of Mr. Chau." She said it's "a case of the biter complaining about being bitten."

Although Chau denied being an agent of Beijing, the court found his explanations for how he funded his special editions were "to say the least, nebulous." Under Quebec law, Chau bore the burden of convincing the court that The Epoch Times failed to exercise a standard of care, and he clearly did not do that.

This case is a significant victory for a publisher that has come under some suspicion because of its ties to the Falun Gong ideology. In 2006, the paper's credibility was damaged when one of its journalists hurled insults at Chinese President Hu Jintao at a White House briefing. President George W. Bush apologized to the Chinese for the incident. In turn, The Epoch Times apologized to the U.S. president, although it denied any direct ties to, or funding from, Falun Gong.

But in the Quebec case, the paper's reporting stood up to the court's scrutiny, and we should all be grateful for their careful scrutiny. Beijing has used similar lawsuits to silence critics, but they weren't allowed to get away with it this time.

Not too long ago, I got an email from someone I will call pcavenger@redspur.com. Obviously someone with a hate on for political correctness. The message was two lines long and made some rather creative suggestions for what I could do with my head.

I thought up a witty reply and tried to send it, but of course it bounced. The ranter wasn't interested in dialogue, just delivering abuse, a sure sign of a closed mind.

There's a lot of it out there, mainly populating what I call the right-wing blogosphere. I rattled some of their chains when I dared to question Islamophobic columns written by the patron saint of the political mouth breather set, Mark Steyn.

Communications from people who are angry and choose to post anonymously are uniformly brief, profane, flip, angry, ignorant, abusive and crude. It seemed inevitable that someone would blow the whistle on their cowardly game.

Kathy English, public editor at the Toronto Star, wrote an interesting column on it today, saying her paper is joining a growing list of others that are thinking of restricting anonymous posts.

Now, I have watched with some mirth the tortured efforts of mainstream newspapers like the Star to adapt to the free-for-all culture of the Web. They need it, but they just don't get it. Last year, English defended her paper's calling-out of columnist Antonia Zerbisias for making a flip reference in her blog to Bernie Farber appearing in the Pride parade, and her not knowing that he was a closet gay. It was obviously a joke, delivered with typical Internet irony and playfullness, but the Star took it seriously as a slur. Antonia's eyes must still be rolling on that one.

Never mind. English's column today makes a valid point against anonymity. She cites some recent court orders in Canada and the U.S., requiring newspapers to disclose the identities of people who post abusive or defamatory comments on their sites anonymously. She says it is important for papers like the Star to act before the courts do. The paper receives more than 15,000 comments by email each month and most, she says, are pseudonymous.

Ask some of these anonymous posters why they do it (as I did last year, when I was getting blitzed over Steyn), and they say they fear economic reprisals or loss of employment if their views are unpopular with their customers or employers. They like to describe themselves as champions of freedom of speech, but don't seem to understand that's a constitutional right in Canada, and no one can get fired for expressing an opinion. If that happens, you can take your case to a human rights commission.

Oh, right, I forgot .... human rights commissions are the enemies of these people. They think that's where their rights of free speech -- all the brief, profane, flip, angry, ignorant, crude and anonymous rantings they need to send out -- are being trampled.

I say keep sending them out if you want, folks. But don't be cowards and hide your identities. Take responsibility for your opinions, like the rest of us do. 　

So the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is disbanding. Should anyone care?

Anyone who cares about the accurate portrayal of visible minorities on television should care a lot. That’s because the CAB’s decision to throw in the towel after 84 years of attempting to represent Canada’s private broadcasters also puts an end to the country’s most interesting experiment in making media toe the line on fair portrayal.

In 2001, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission leaned on the CAB to develop an action plan to fulfill the responsibility that every broadcaster has under the Canadian Broadcasting Act – to reflect the multicultural nature of Canadian society in its programming and its employment. That is stated as a license condition in Section 3(1)(d)(iii) of the Act.

To its credit, the CAB formed a taskforce that recommended a series of "best practices" that all of its members endorsed in 2005. It committed the industry to improve the depiction and on-air presence of minorities in the news, to develop training and tracking programs to avoid the stereotyping or stigmatization of people by their racial origins, to communicate its diversity plans to its audiences, including schools of journalism, and to take steps to ensure that experts and on-air guests would represent a broad range of ethnocultural backgrounds.

It drew these "best practices" from an international survey of similar broadcasting initiatives, and an impressive content analysis of 330 hours of Canadian programming from 72 English and French language TV programs. That analysis showed that "experts" interviewed in the news were almost all white, there were few non-white hosts or reporters working in French TV, and Canadians of Asian or South Asian heritage – the country’s two largest visible minority groups – were almost invisible.

The CRTC was pleased, praising the recommendations of the taskforce report, Reflecting Canadians, as "tangible and concrete." But it didn’t let the CAB off the hook, pressing them anew to put meat on the bones of the recommendations and, to use just one example, take specific steps to address the acute under-representation of Asian-Canadians on the air.

It’s not hard to question the CAB’s sincerity in embracing diversity. The outreach to journalism schools never happened. No training programs were designed or put in place. Nothing is being measured to ensure progress. And although the CAB came up with a new Equitable Portrayal Code, it is voluntary and contains no penalties. Its language seems weasley, like it was drafted by nervous lawyers. One example: "TV and radio programming shall respect the principle of equitable portrayal of all individuals." How about doing it for real? There was no pledge to stop stereotyping, just to make sure programming did not contain any "unduly negative stereotypical material or comment." How much is unduly?

When the vague language in the code was criticized, CAB defended it by saying it would be administered fairly and toughly by the "independent" Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. In fact, the standards council is a creation of the CAB and there is still no word on whether it will die with it.

Who killed the CAB? Declining audiences, concentration of ownership and a bitter fight over cable television fees are being blamed for splitting the broadcasters apart. Once a powerful organization, the CAB largely sat on the sidelines as the CRTC grappled with whether to impose a new fee on cable companies carrying local television signals. That was proposed by big networks like CTV and CanWest but opposed by cable giants Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw as nothing more than a bailout for poor business decisions, like buying expensive U.S. programming. All were members of the CAB.

Now the CRTC is back to square one in its efforts to promote diversity on air. It has the CAB’s good plans on paper, but badly needs someone else to carry it out.

Research done recently in Vancouver may provide clues to Toronto news media on how to reach what is often called "the other 50 percent" – those Canadians in the GTA who were born in another country and tend to be increasingly non-white.

As their overall readerships and viewerships stagnate or decline, mainstream daily newspapers and TV news stations might assume that the trend is common across all demographics: Minority news consumers behave more or less like anyone else, and age rather than ethnicity is the significant factor. But new research in Vancouver’s large Chinese community indicates that may not be true. Those consumers may not be there at all, and there is need for new strategies to target multicultural communities.

The research was a joint project between INNOVATIVE Research and S.U.C.C.E.S.S., a social service agency in Vancouver that works to engage new immigrants in Canadian society. The agency says the research proves that social, cultural, political, governmental and business entities must learn to use the Chinese language media to get their message across to Chinese-Canadian communities in Vancouver. Also, English language print media need to take special measures if they want to expand their readership to Chinese Canadians.

The Vancouver research confirms other findings that social cohesion, political engagement and media consumption are intrinsically linked, and there are opportunities for mainstream media organizations to capitalize on that as businesses.

If diversity media are increasingly important in Vancouver, they are even more so in Toronto, which has a much broader demographic mix. The only similar research found in the GTA was commissioned from Ipsos Reid in 2007 by Sing Tao, Toronto's most-read Chinese daily newspaper. It showed that 52 percent of Chinese Canadians read Chinese newspapers and magazines exclusively. Only 18 percent read English publications exclusively, and 30 percent read both English and Chinese publications.

If similar trends are occurring in other multicultural groups, there is a huge cohort in the GTA that is not reading or viewing mainstream news outlets. They are getting their news in their own languages, and these media are robust, trusted and numerous. A recent survey by Diversity Media Services, a division of Multimedia Nova Corporation, identified 243 newspapers published in the GTA, in 47 languages other than English, and that did not include other papers that are national in scope and mailed to readers in Toronto (DMS identified 480 titles nationally). Publishers in the GTA actually produce 10 daily newspapers in languages other than English and French (Corriere Canadese, Korea Times Daily, Korea Central Daily, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao Daily, Chinese World Journal, Today Daily News, Daily South Asian Free Press, Punjabi Post, Punjabi Daily).

On TV, Toronto viewers have a choice of daily news programs carried on OMNI-1 and OMNI-2 directed at the diverse South Asian community and separate news programs broadcast daily in Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian and Portuguese. Fairchild TV News is a Cantonese cable channel which competes with OMNI-2 and provides an hour-long news program seven days a week, including international, national and local news, weather, sports and business. Clearly, multicultural communities do not need to rely on the mainstream media; but, given the rapidly changing demographics of the GTA, the reverse may not be true.

The problem with these communities relying solely on diversity media are threefold: The industry is volatile, it is extremely fragmented, and its resources for news gathering are limited. As an example of volatility, DMS discovered 70 dead titles when it tried to contact newspapers that appeared on a list compiled 18 months earlier, which mainly relied on a federal Ministry of Public Works master list. Ryerson School of Journalism researchers encountered similar problems when trying in 2007 to update a 2006 listing of diversity newspapers they compiled for Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Publications Assistance Program. Part of the reason is size. Even the more established newspapers serving multicultural communities in the GTA tend to have small circulations when compared to their mainstream counterparts. Example: Share, a weekly containing news of interest to the Black community, prints 51,000 copies, about the same number as Ming Pao, and they are two of the larger diversity publications in the GTA. The result is that 25 or more newspapers serve each of the larger distinct communities, and there is an explosion of small media serving recent newcomer groups such as Russians. Many are limited in reach to local areas by the high cost of distribution. This compounds the problem that social, cultural, political, governmental or business entities have in spreading their messages widely to those communities.

News content is also limited by resources. A 2006 poll of 111 diversity publishers by researchers at Ryerson University found that 39 percent listed their top challenge as finding writers and 33 percent said it was adding local content. While it was common for these newspapers to have home-country news (usually ripped off the Internet), it was rarer for them to have the resources to give comprehensive coverage of events and issues in the community here. And there is no multicultural wire service providing common news to these communities, so there is much duplication of effort in providing basic settlement news for newcomers.

Within those restraints, the diversity media are robust, and virtually recession-proof because of their reader loyalty and cultural connection. Circulation at some of the larger titles is rising rather than falling, which is the case at many mainstream dailies. The healthier ones are expanding rather than downsizing. One example is Multimedia Nova, which publishes Corriere Canadese, Correo Canadiense (in Spanish), O Correio Canadiano (in Portuguese) and also the Town Crier chain of English-language community papers serving upscale Toronto neighbourhoods like Leaside, Forest Hill and the Annex. Its DMS division is set up as a marketing partnership with the 480 national newspapers it has identified and partnered with. It has already attracted business from some big advertisers like General Motors and Ontario Place. Recognizing the potential, Torstar Corp. (parent company of the Toronto Star) recently bought a 20 percent share of Multimedia Nova. In 2001, it bought control of the Canadian editions of Sing Tao newspapers, providing the Chinese daily with Canadian editorial content. Other strategies by mainstream media to tap into a growing readership might be fruitful in the near future.

Meanwhile, the diversity newspapers are trying to adapt on their own to the changing needs of news consumers. In the 2006 survey by Ryerson's School of Journalism, 57 percent of diversity publishers said they have online versions and half the others planned to do so. Half planned to publish more content in English (72 percent said they already did). What is even more important, very few saw themselves as an alternative to mainstream dailies. In an apparent contradiction of the findings of the INNOVATIVE Research findings in Vancouver, 87 percent of publishers/editors of diversity newspapers expected their readers to also use mainstream dailies.

There seems to be an opportunity here for mainstream media to form partnerships, or to cater more deliberately to diverse readers themselves. There is business waiting.

His ill-advised letter to American conservative commentator Ann Coulter, advising her to watch what she was planning to say at a campus speaking engagement, not only embarrassed his university, it should cause all academic administrators to question just how strongly they embrace academic freedom. Is it something easily sacrificed if the opinion is unpopular or one they don't like?

Coulter, of course, is one of those hypocrites who say nasty things about Muslims and other minorities, then claim it was all just playful fun. She's the American version of Mark Steyn. The best thing that can happen is to allow her to talk in public, where the full ridiculousness of her bigotry can be  exposed and challenged.  The worst thing is to make her a martyr to political correctness and chicken-hearted censorship.

That's exactly what Houle's letter did. By framing her as a moral outlaw, and more or less threatening to have the thought police out in force, he gave encouragement to the protesting students who prevented her from speaking at all. He handed Coulter all that she ever  wants -- cheap publicity -- and something that she seldom achieves -- the moral high ground.

The second ranking academic administrator of the U of O also slipped up badly on his law. Canadian jurists have consistently ruled that we live in a free country where people have as much right to express outrageous and ridiculous opinions as moderate ones. Commentators like Coulter are under no obligation to weigh their words, as Houle urged her to do, "with respect and civility." (Sun Media legal columnist Alan Shanoff wrote a withering criticism of Houle's inaccuracies here).

I consider myself a staunch defender of freedom of expression and academic freedom. Universities, especially, should be places where strong ideas are exchanged and debated. Knowledge -- and universities are in the business of creating knowledge -- is often the product of outrageous notions clashing with conventional wisdom.

But the battle of ideas must be fought on a level playing field. When one side seizes the moral high ground, as Houle did in his letter to Coulter, it subverts freedom of expression in a chilling way. It is equivalent  to Maclean's magazine using its position as Canada's only weekly news magazine to pillory Muslims as bloodthirsty terrorists who hate the West. It shuts out any other view and prevents any useful exchange of views.

We should all stand up for the free expression of strong opinions, especially if we disagree with them. That's a lesson I hope Francois Houle has learned from this.

I doubt anyone will want the whole thing. But Quebecor could well have an interest in the Montreal Gazette; Torstar might consider adding the Ottawa Citizen to its Ontario daily stable; and, yes, the reincarnated David Radler, fresh from jail, might relish the chance to reacquire the Vancouver Sun and Province. (The first bidder, in fact, is a group headed by Senator Jerry Grafstein which wants only the Gazette, Citizen and Post).

The CanWest chain is surely worth more sold separately than in one chunk. Why? Because the National Post doesn't have enough circulation in Toronto to carry a national advertising buy anymore. And it's losing a million dollars every two weeks. The rest of the papers are mostly profitable. If you're putting up a billion, you don't want an albatross (the Post) dragging you underwater.

The other reason is that media are increasingly going local. This can be measured in the decline in national advertising at the papers in question, and the growing appetite for local news, which cannot be satisfied by the Internet the way national and international news can.

The return to local owners -- a throwback to the days when Atkinsons and McConnells and Siftons owned their papers instead of debt-burdened public corporations -- is the best idea for rejuvenating the Canadian newspaper industry that I can see on the horizon.

And no, I don't expect an apology from the Canadian newspaper industry. Fourteen years ago, I felt I was just doing my job.

Journalists need to remember it's the public's interest, not their own.

If it has a low point, it was in two columns -- one by George Jonas in the National Post (Sept. 9), the other by Jim Coyle in the Star (Sept. 11). Both implied the bicycle courier was the author of his own death, absolving the man whose car ran him down, former Ontario attorney-general Michael Bryant.

Here's what Jonas wrote in part: "Whatever made the 33-year-old victim, Darcy Allan Sheppard, turn physical, a number of media reports indicate he did -- and as it came to light later, not for the first time that evening. His earlier involvement in a boozy altercation also required police intervention. When Sheppard threw down his bicycle and reached for Bryant who was sitting behind the wheel of his convertible with his wife beside him, the ex-A-G's alternatives were fighting or fleeing."

He cited no sources who saw Sheppard "turn physical," and admits he did no independent reporting himself. Since the facts about what happened that night have not been presented in court, there is absolutely no basis for saying Bryant's only options were fighting or fleeing. And is it "fleeing" when you accelerate your car into the wrong lane of traffic with someone hanging on?

Now here is Coyle, who admits in his column "I know and like Bryant. He's precisely the sort of cocky, mischievous little SOB I loved to have on my team, the kind who wasn't much fun to play against." By contrast, he says of Sheppard: "By no stretch was Darcy Sheppard a member of life's lucky sperm club."

But Coyle goes further, and says the confrontation "had little to do with the hazards of cycling ... What (it) seems more to be about is mental health and the menace of untreated addiction."

Like Jonas, Coyle appears to have done no independent reporting. He does not explain how he knows Sheppard instigated the confrontation, or what form of mental illness he allegedly suffered from. He does not outline what choices either man had in their confrontation, but delivers his verdict out of the blue: "Sheppard's day had been marked by a long string of bad decisions, Bryant's by choices and actions that were responsible, even charming."

Here he is referring to an earlier Star story, leaked by a "source close to the family" (more about this in a sec), that Bryant and his wife had eaten at a modest College Street shawarma joint, then walked on the beach and finally finished up at a Greek pastry shop on the Danforth -- an idyllic and alcohol-free anniversary celebration that Coyle eulogizes as "so romantic and so Toronto."

But, again with no facts to back it up, he speculates that Bryant exercised similar class and good judgment during his altercation with Sheppard. "In the hours leading up to it, Bryant did lots that was good and proper. So, too, in the confrontation. He probably hasn't walked away from many fights. But that night, by all accounts, he tried to disengage. It's worth remembering that Bryant is a boxer. Whatever his impulse and inclination, he opted out of the bout. The other party didn't."

What is troubling is that, two days before Coyle's column was published, NOW magazine put up on its website a surveillance video that, although grainy, appeared to show that Bryant touched off the incident by "bumping" Sheppard and his bike from behind.

I have no idea what prompted Jonas or Coyle to write those columns. I hope it wasn't that ubiquitous "source close to the family," which is almost certainly shorthand for Navagator, the image consultant hired by Bryant shortly after the accident. Planting favourable information about your client in the media is standard operating procedure. So, too, is trying to knock down the image of an adversary, in this case, someone who is not alive to defend himself.

What's clear is that, whatever the motive for writing those columns, neither newspaper should have published them.

That happened to me in the wake of the so-called “Wafergate scandal,” which involved the bogus story about Prime Minister Stephen Harper pocketing a communion wafer at the Roman Catholic funeral of former governor-general Romeo Leblanc.

I ended up not doing the interview, but the facts are these: Originally published on the front page of the Saint John Telegraph-Journal under the headline “It’s a scandal,” the story was picked up by the national media for three weeks until the paper apologized – to the PM and, here’s the rub, the two reporters whose bylines were on the story. Seems they didn’t write it in their story – their editor did.

So editor Shawna Richer and her publisher, Jamie Irving, were fired. Well, Richer was fired. Irving, scion of the powerful clan that owns all the newspapers in New Brunswick, will likely do okay at some other desk in his family’s company.

It’s hard to know what the strongest lesson is from this fiasco: Never, if you’re a WASP and a doofus, get into line for the Holy Sacrament? Don’t act on news tips from the publisher? Try not to repeat second-hand stories involving the prime minister without checking?

The unfortunate Richer had to drink Kool-Aid for following orders. So be it, and are other editors across Canada not now maybe feeling extra calcium in their backbones about standing up to the big guy next time? They should. Jamie Irving wasn’t at the funeral and may have been prompted by Liberal friends or relatives to order his editor to write in the allegation that Harper put it in his pocket.

We’ll leave aside the big question for the Prime Minister: Where were your protocol people, since you obviously didn’t know what to do at a Catholic religious service and looked like a dummy?

My concern is broader: Why is there no self-correcting mechanism in the Canadian media? Why did this non-story (yeah, I know, it’s summer but ...) get carried so far on such spindly legs when someone should have simply checked real sources and believed them –  the priest, who said Harper ate it, a Liberal senator, who saw him eat it, or anyone who was in the first five rows at a televised state funeral?

With all the trees that were destroyed to convey wrong facts across the country, one anonymous comment to a Maclean’s magazine blog got it right: “What the apology from the TJ paper in New Brunswick has confirmed in the minds of many Canadians is that the media in this country is corrupt and unscrupulous. They operate in a pack mentality and so if one media outlet reports it then the rest follow suit and take no time to verify that the story is credible and factual.”

The writer added, somewhat hopefully: “The Canadian media should be hanging their heads in shame today.”

But that ain’t happening. The media in Canada are oblivious to shame. It’s not in their vocabulary. They passed beyond shame many years ago. They will simply wait for the next juicy non-story – probably involving shoes or a nanny – pump lots of hot air into it until it floats, then spend weeks nudging it along with reaction.

“Rip and read” used to be a radio sin. In the age of Internet, we need stronger hands at the controls of our major national newspapers and television channels.

Check. It. Out.

Or we may decide we can do without you.

That's how many people in the GTA identify themselves as Italian heritage. The review, by Corey Mintz (Wining and dining like a mayor, Dec. 16), went out of its way to stereotype Basilico Ristorante, an Italian eatery in Vaughan, as a threatening and misogynistic den of crude labourers, fondlers and, perhaps, Mafioso money launderers.

The writer's pretext was to try to recreate the dining experience of troubled Vaughan mayor Linda Jackson, who once billed her municipality $300 for a dinner for three at the restaurant.

After a few catty remarks about the food, Mintz wrote: "The service may be a little patronizing. Our server asks if we know what arugula is and lays paws on the ladies. It's a very male-centric room. Besides our table, there is one woman present, out of 21 guests.

"Guys pop in for minutes at a time, picking up and dropping off envelopes and panettone. One gentleman strides into the restaurant and spends a few minutes working his way around the main table, saying hello, shaking a lot of thick hands.

"I eat in restaurants all the time and rarely do I feel any warmth that extends beyond professional courtesy. But at this Italian restaurant in Woodbridge, in a strip mall housing a Pizza Nova and a 'Canada's Best Karate' I definitely feel that I don't belong."

Well, he got that last part right. He didn't belong there and his review didn't belong in a newspaper that professes to chronicle modern life in the GTA.

The classlessness of the Star's decision to publish it stands in stark contrast to the dignified letter of complaint that Basilico's owner, Sam Primucci, wrote to Mintz and the paper. The Star published it on Dec. 20, but refused to apologize for the review. It still appears on the paper's website.

"As President and owner of Basilico Ristorante in Vaughan I would like to thank you for taking the time to visit my establishment, and as a restaurateur I accept and welcome your feedback and commentary of Basilico Ristorante, its service and most importantly its food.

"As a professional, as an Italian, as a proud Canadian citizen and significant contributor to Canadian society I do, however, not accept the stereotypical allusions that were made in your article that denigrate my patrons, the citizens of Vaughan and the entire Italian community."

Primucci said it is "second nature" to him as a business owner of Italian heritage "that upon arrival to my establishment or any public function, that I greet all with a smile and a handshake and those closest to me with a warm embrace. In the Italian culture, to not do so would be a symbol of disrespect.

"Another facet of the Italian culture that as a food critic you must be aware of is that throughout the Christmas season, Italians pay their respect to family, friends and colleagues in person, bearing Christmas cards, baked goods, bottles of wine, warm embraces and well wishes."

To the writer, Primucci wished him "happy holidays," and suggested he confine his comments to food in the future, because "your lack of integrity, respect, empathy and culture do not deem you fit to share your opinions and voice with the fine citizens of the Greater Toronto area."

Shame on the newspaper for refusing to apologize. Perhaps it needs to hear from a few more of its readers.

Now he has finally done that. What can I say? Congratulations. It’s a start. It’s progress.

At issue was the veracity of the quotation he picked up from Oriana Fallaci and used in a review he wrote in Maclean’s magazine of her book The Rage and the Pride. The quote was allegedly from the Ayatollah Khomeini: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin."

In his Nov. 30 blog titled The Shagged Sheep, Steyn reveals: "When it comes to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s views on sheep shagging, my guide for many years has been a book called Resaleh Towzih al-Masael…. It was translated into English, unabridged, by J Borujerdi and published in 1984 by Westview in London and Boulder, Colorado under the title A Clarification of Questions."

He quotes from it:

#2631. It is loathsome to eat the meat of horse and mule and donkey and if somebody makes coitus with them, that is an intercourse, they become unlawful and they must be taken out of the city and sold elsewhere.

#2632. If they have intercourse with a cow and sheep and camel their urine and dung becomes unclean and drinking their milk will also be unlawful and they must be killed and burned without delay, and the person who had intercourse with them must pay money to the owner. Further, if he had intercourse with any beast its milk becomes unlawful.

I am willing to accept this as evidence that the late Ayatollah did indeed have something to say about having sex with animals. I am also willing to accept that it was not from the discredited Little Green Book, as I was led to believe by fellow blogger Deborah Gayapong (in the absence of any verification from Mr. Steyn), but from the English translation of a book, Resaleh Towzih al-Masael, which apparently had a blue cover when it was first published.

Journalists and even polemicists should document their sources, and it is every reader’s right to ask them to do so. That was all that I asked Mr. Steyn to do in my Nov. 13 blog (Open letter to Steyn): "I’m just saying that no one has verified that the Ayatollah ever said: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin."

Do I owe Mr. Steyn or Ms Fallaci an apology? I do. I was incorrect to say that Mr. Steyn did not cite a source for the quotation in his review. He did (and I corrected that statement on my blog more than two weeks ago). He took it from Ms Fallaci’s book. And I was obviously wrong in saying there is no "Blue Book."

So if Mr. Steyn will be gracious enough to accept my apology for that error, perhaps he will answer three questions about the way he has been using the Ayatollah’s quotation:

1. Do you not see a fundamental difference between the Fallaci version and the version you now cite from A Clarification of Questions? You say in your most recent blog, "Now, it’s true that La Fallaci’s wording differs from Mr. Borujerdi’s. But so what?" I’ll tell you so what: Fallaci, and you, use the quotation to imply that the Ayatollah, and in fact a great many Muslims, condone bestiality. The quotes from A Clarification of Questions, on the other hand, make clear that he considered the practice "unlawful."

2. Are you aware that the translation of the book you cite has been called into question by the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 370 -371 The reviewer, Prof. Azim Nanji of Oklahoma State University, says A Clarification of Questions: An Unabridged Translation of "Resaleh Towzih al-Masael" is deeply flawed. Borujerdi’s translation, he says, "contains many errors and is very misleading in places." He calls it "a case of lost labour."

3. Now that you’ve found what purports to be the actual quote, why do you persist in using it to gleefully make sport of all Muslims, portraying them as uncivilized, vulgar, menacing people who are prone to do the unthinkable and shag or "roger" sheep? Here’s what you wrote in your Fallaci review: "I enjoy the don't-eat-your-sexual-partner stuff as much as the next infidel, but the challenge presented by Islam is not that the cities of the Western world will be filling up with sheep-shaggers. If I had to choose, I'd rather Mohammed Atta was downriver in Egypt hitting on the livestock than flying through the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. But he’s not."

It is your use of the alleged quote to promote an inaccurate religious stereotype that I find dishonest. Bestiality is not condoned by Islam. That is a fact. It is prohibited.

You have admirable skills as a writer. You are also entitled to your point of view, and you obviously have a great many loyal followers who hang on your every word. That gives you power, and it should give you responsibility.

What responsibility do you have as a writer to avoid inaccurate stereotypes?

What onus do you feel, as a person who has considerable influence, to promote understanding, not just tear us further apart?

Why do you resort to personal insults when the issues -- most of which I raised and you have not addressed -- are journalistic: Do you select or exaggerate facts to justify your point of view, or is your point of view shaped by the facts?