by Richard Skelly » Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:07 pm
Globe and Mail business columnist David Milstead neatly summarized the back-scratching deal between Postmedia and Torstar. In his March 23 column, Milstead documented how executives of both companies got caught lying about not knowing each other’s plans to shut down swapped papers. Thanks to a CBC expose, the Competition Bureau is retroactively involved.
Trump buddy David Pecker, CEO of American Media is also involved in the scandal. He and two other directors were placed on the Postmedia board by a New Jersey hedge fund that owns a chunk of the floundering Canadian chain’s debt. American Media, of course, is accused of trying to bury the tale of Stormy Daniels and Trump by paying off the porn star with allegedly unfulfilled promises of columns in the National Enquirer.
The hedge funds and a dwindling number of Postmedia executives have profited immensely from creating the corporate entity to run assets purchased out of CanWest’s bankruptcy. In my opinion, Postmedia itself was doomed from Day 1 of its over-indebted existence.
That Torstar comes out sullied is surprising. The flagship Toronto Star newspaper has always wrapped itself in capital L Liberal virtue. Seems like some of the parent corporation’s bigwigs are more like villains in one of those Harlequin Romances that used to be an ancillary unit of the chain.
One can sympathize with all media striving to survive in the Internet Age. But there are still standards of good and bad behaviour. So far, the corporate suits appear to be the heavies in this piece.