Having never been a fan of Rosie DiManno, this is by way of apology. She deserves a further read. This is because of today’s epic by Rosie that so scathingly cuts Lord Cross-the-pond—Conrad Black into little pieces. And in typical DiManno fashion, it involves hundreds of more words than needed to do the job.
If there is a quibble with Rosie as a writer, it is verbosity. In the age of the 140-character Twitter, Rosie wants to be paid by the word. How many times have you set aside a Rosie DiManno column to read later when you have time—and never read it?
This woman writes paragraphs that are longer than most blogs. And yet she still seems to think of herself as a blogger. She is caught up with the blogger’s failure—the extensive use of the word “I.” Is this allowed in her contract or is it just another failure of the Toronto Star editors?
But the point is that this page two column by Rosie is that it is an excellent hatchet job. How many people do you get to write about where you can casually refer to them as a convicted felon without fear of reprisal? And her comments on Barbara Amiel are priceless. Let us hope that the two ladies do not meet at any holiday parties. Mind you, as Amiel might sniffingly note: the two travel in quite different circles. Oh, how quickly Amiel has forgotten her days in newsrooms!
While DiManno seems to be grudgingly admiring of Amiel’s writing prowess, she uses it to put down the lady’s husband. This is probably just one more unnecessary hit on the guy. When you calculate the likely audience of a Conrad Black interview show on the particular channel, you wonder how silly it is for all the other media to comment on the show. The news media must have been 95 per cent of the audience.
And who needs to still be writing about Mayor Rob Ford? Like Lake Ontario fish, Mayor Ford has been out in the open air for too long. He is old news. He only belongs on the history channel.
You would think that Conrad Black would know a thing or two about newspapers. DiManno makes much of his arguments with the Toronto Star over the rather poor interviewing techniques he demonstrated. Black is not a professional interviewer. So what?
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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