Black out.

The news that Conrad Black had sold his remaining 50% ownership of the National Post to Izzy Asper's Can West Global TV media company filled many people with dismay. The Post has made an enormous difference to the Canadian newspaper scene, not only because it made Canada's so-called national newspaper, the Globe, lose its complacency and strive to become more journalistically respectable, but especially because it gave a voice to disenfranchised Canadians of more conservative persuasion.

Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe noted:

"The arrival of the Post made Toronto the liveliest and most diverse newspaper city on the continent." Veteran journalist Peter Worthington wrote in the Toronto Sun that "Conrad's loss is ours, too." Like many, he said, "I felt Conrad's Post was in a fight for the betterment of Canada -- figuratively, shoulder-to-shoulder with others in this ongoing struggle. With him gone, seemingly routed by his ideological foe, Jean Chretien, we are left to the mercies of Can West and the Aspers, who have little empathy with traditions and practices of the print media. And the bulk of the Canadian media is now controlled by the liberalism of Jean Chretien, which is hard to distinguish from dictatorial dogmatism."

In the Globe, the redoubtable Margaret Wente also emphasized the dismaying prospect of the Aspers controlling the Post. She quoted Leonard Asper as saying, "Our company is in the business of selling advertising" -- something Conrad Black would never have said. The Aspers are allergic to red ink, she explained; they run their broadcast operations on two beans and a doughnut, and they are not fond of the relentless media attacks on our admirable Prime Minister -- a Post speciality which will probably quickly end.

In fact, last March ,David Asper, in an opinion piece which he requested all of Can West's papers and the Post to run, said: "The media's coverage of the accusations against the Prime Minister has crossed a line that delineates solid investigative reporting from adjective-driven innuendo."

Miss Wente summarized the difference in styles of operations in this way: "Mr. Black loves good newspapers and understands them. The Aspers do not. Their vastly profitable television interests come first."

If Ken Whyte remains as editor, and is allowed to keep his stable of thoughtful columnists, there may yet be hope for Canadians who are all sick and tired of the media's previous 40-year long subservience to the Liberal left. It would be a crying shame if these benefits of Conrad Black's moment of fame and influence were to disappear.

Finally, for Catholics it is not well known that Conrad Black is a Catholic and a philanthropic one at that. He made two donations of $l million each to the Christianity and Culture program of St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto, the only program which is still fully alive amidst the ruins of the College's former liberal arts program.