I don't understand this story at all.
Let me help.
Who is paying whom?
Quote: "Hollinger admitted on Friday payments received from rival publishers had not been disclosed to investors."
Hollinger is in the business of syndicating content. When articles, cartoons, etc. get picked up by other publishers, they pay royalties for content. Say for instance an article by Bob Novak from the Hollinger owned Chicago Sun Times is picked up and published by the Knight-Ridder family of newspapers, thus the article is published in the Aberdeen (S.D.) American News, Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, The (Biloxi, Miss.) Sun Herald, The Bradenton (Fla.) Herald, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, The (Columbia, S.C.) State, Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer and the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times.
Nine newspapers in total. So, Knight-Ridder cuts a check to Hollinger for, say, $10 per insertion, or $90. This is a typical rate, and when a syndicated columnist can sell an article to hundreds of newspapers, we are talking real money.
So the Conrad Black scam was that he diverted the revenues (the $90 times many insertions over a period of time) into his own accounts and shorted the public treasury of the NYSE traded Hollinger. Black was cheating his stockholders out of revenue.
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Why would a publisher pay a rival?
For content. (See above)
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Re: And what does Bob Novak have to do with it?
Novak's column is syndicated by Hollinger and Novak and Hollinger (or in this case Conrad Black) each get a cut. |
