From the Archives, 1991: New boss right at home in the media scrum

30 years ago, Australia’s newest media baron, Conrad Black, arrived in Sydney grinning “like a Cheshire cat” and “looking like a man enjoying a sweet dream”.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on December 18, 1991

From the Archives

Canadian publisher Conrad Black at his press conference at Sydney Airport.
CREDIT: PALANI MOHAN

By Mark Riley

A huge grin split across the face of Australia’s newest media baron, the Canadian publisher Mr Conrad Black, as the lights of the television cameras found his range at Sydney Airport yesterday morning.

He strode out of the Customs corridor at 8.15 am looking like a man enjoying a sweet dream.

“He’s grinning like a Cheshire cat,” observed a second rower in the waiting media scrum.

“And he’s just had a big belly full of cream,” added another.

Mr Black strode confidently through the arrivals foyer and out onto the footpath to conduct the first of many doorstop interviews for the day.

Charter of Editorial Independence? “We agree to 90 per cent of it, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Who will be your chief executive? “It will be somebody good, somebody local ... not someone to terrorise the Friends of Fairfax.”

What about your managers? “Well, we are not going to appoint Nazi or Communist editors. As long as we have got a main stream of responsible people who judge issues on their merits and are independently minded, that’s all I have ever wanted.”

The questions kept coming and the answers kept following, carefully articulated and delivered with a continual half twist of the body to ensure all cameras in the scrum got a good frame full of the grin.

Australia’s newest media baron is obviously an accomplished media performer, right down to ensuring the airport porter received a hefty tip while the cameras kept rolling.

Mr Black’s entourage drove to the Ritz Carlton for breakfast and a perusal of the coverage of yesterday’s events in the newly acquired newspapers.

It wasn’t until an hour later that Tourang director Mr Dan Colson, obviously exhausted after his marathon leg work for the bid, was told that Mr Black had arrived.

“Your man is here,” the Ritz Carlton concierge whispered conspiratorially across the reception desk as Mr Colson walked through the foyer about 10 am.

“My what? Pardon me?” he replied, bemused.

“Your man — he is here,” the concierge repeated with new emphasis, before showing Mr Colson to his boss’s room.

Outside, a snappily dressed gentleman cradling a suburban Sydney newspaper approached the patiently waiting media and inquired about the fuss.

“Conrad Black is here?” he said. “Oh, I think I will faint.”

(The Sydney Morning Herald)