Mr. Black preaches from his National Pulpit.

TORONTO • Over the last two years, much ink has been spilled over Canada's newspaper wars. Most of the media interest has centered on Toronto and the battle between the Thomson's Globe and Mail and Hollinger's National Post. Now that both Thomson and Hollinger have put the bulk of their press holdings up for sale, many pundits were calling it a bloody draw in which the two combatants may have mortally wounded one another.

Hollinger Chairman Conrad Black recently met with the media to dispel any notion of a stalemate in the Canadian newspaper trench warfare. "I don't want to brag too much, but obviously the other guy blinked first," said Mr. Black, referring to Thomson's February decision to sell all of its newspapers except the Globe and Mail.

"Not only did they put their newspapers up for sale more than two months before us, but they are dumping 98% of their dailies. We, on the other hand, almost definitely will not sell more than 91% of our daily papers," Mr. Black gloated.

On the titanic struggle between the Globe and Mail and his National Post, Mr. Black noted that his rival's circulation stagnated while the National Post's has increased by a multiple of infinity since September 1998. "They are obviously having trouble selling enough papers, while we can give away as many as we can print," he chortled.

Mr. Black also hailed his paper's ideological purity which contrasted with the Globe's "sleazy slide toward the bad old days of quasi-left-wing, neo-NDPish so-called 'caring' journalism." He decried their series on the Toronto homeless as a "desperate attempt to boost circulation among the bearded coffee-house malcontents who should be anathema to any self-respecting business-oriented paper."

"We trounced them 10 to 1 in front page stories about the key political and economic issue of uniting the right and we almost single-handedly dragged the Liberals kicking and screaming to the land of tax-cuts. Meanwhile the Globe mawkishly feigned concern about the detritus of society that we all know are better-off six-feet-under rather than clogging the social safety net," Mr. Black fulminated.

Mr. Black also dismissed rumours that he had announced the sale to depress the price of the Thomson properties out of spite or to force the government to allow foreign ownership of newspapers so the value of his holdings would increase. "That's absurd hogwash," he exclaimed, "didn't you notice that our earnings per share decreased 32% last year-- we really are desperate to sell."