And now this morning's worth mentioning media business news

Crain's continues to spread the love this time overseas with the launch of Crain's Manchester Business [Greenslade] Pakistani Journalists are free to report again, just as long as they don't say bad things about the government [Greenslade] We did mention that former newspaper barron Conrad Black is off to prison right? [NYT] Things are kinda fucked up at NBC. So fucked up that they are paying back advertisers some money [NYP]

And now this morning's worth mentioning media business news

Fox News aims to bring it to you live via satellite SUVs [NYT] Newspaper publishers will stop at nothing to be at the top of Google and Yahoo's search results page [NYT] It's prison time for fallen newspaper kingpin Conrad Black [NYP]

The board members of Hollinger were a board of thieves?

-SHOMARI HINES Everyday a new door opens in the Conrad Black trial. This time the door that opened has Black's former board members approving the cash Black allegedly stole. Were they a board of thieves or a board bamboozled by its CEO? Then again based on the people who made up the board of directors at the time, they were probably thieves themselves The board of Hollinger International Inc. included such high-profile figures as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former Illinois governor James Thompson, one-timePentagon official Richard Perle and Richard Burt, once U.S. ambassador to Germany.Black's lawyer, Edward Genson, used a former secretary with the company to produce testimony detailing a series of so-called non-compete payments intended to guarantee that Hollinger would not reenter a market where it sold a media asset. Board knew of Conrad Black's payments, jurors told [Reuters]

Don't let her rich face fool you

-Shomari Hines Overwhelmed by the stress of possibly losing her husband to a cold concrete jail cell, Lady Black reportedly flipped out in court yesterday leading her to say some un-lady like things to a reporter. "You slut," she hissed in a posh British-sounding accent at a Canadian television producer who has been keeping her camera crew abreast of the minute-by-minute courthouse movements of the Blacks since the trial's start Wednesday. "You're all vermin. I'm sick of it," she said to Canadian radio producer Stefani Langenegger and U.K. newspaper reporter Joanna Walters. "I used to be a journalist, I never door-stepped people." Hey Lady Black, thank your husband for your stress toots.

Morning Wire: Will Tribune Zell? | Disney's black princess, and more in this morning's worthy media news...

Sam Zell will reportedly put $13 Billion on the table for Tribune Co, but they may pass on it quicker than he can put it [Reuters] We bet Mike Eisner wouldn't have green lighted the creation of a black princess [FWJZ] Another story that just won't go away is the Conrad Black story, what will it take? [NYP] Myspace looks to take on Digg.com [NYP] Another publication relaunching with a new look and owner. Say hello to the new New Republic [NYT]

Conrad Black's lawyers don't want people to hear what they already know

In what we think is a senseless effort, the lawyers of disgraced former newspaper mogul Conrad Black is trying to block prosecutors from showing jurors a tape on which a shareholder calls the then-head of the Hollinger media empire “a thief.” We say senseless because well.... Conrad Black is what he is. That's like someone trying to block a tape of another someone calling President Bush a Dick Head. In a brief, Mr. Black’s lawyers told Judge Amy J. St. Eve of Federal District Court on Wednesday that the remarks by an irate shareholder, Edward Shuffro, at the May 23, 2002, Hollinger International shareholders meeting were hearsay. “Because Mr. Shuffro is not a witness, admission of his out-of-court statements would deny Mr. Black the right of cross-examination under the Sixth Amendment,” said the three-page brief signed by Marc W. Martin, one of Mr. Black’s lawyers. Conrad Black’s Lawyers Seek to Stifle Tape [NYT]

MEDIA WEASEL: Conrad Black may have taken the "Spark a Rumor, Spike Your Stock" thing a little too serious

It just doesn't get any better for former Hollinger boss turned corporate shit bag Conrad Black. Not only is the man charged with doing an Enron on his company, he is now being charged for alleged insider trading and using anonymous Internet postings to pump his company's flagging stock. The filing also disclosed numerous other misdeeds committed by Black, who was ousted from a publishing empire that once spanned two continents, and included the Chicago Sun-Times and The Daily Telegraph in London. In addition to his alleged plundering of hundreds of millions from Hollinger and its sister companies, Black devised other schemes to siphon cash out of his company for personal use, prosecutors charge. BLACK E-MAILS [NYP]

Weekend Wire: Conrad Black to hammer the nails into his own coffin

Newspaper king turned corporate rapist Conrad Black who pulled an Enron, is vowing to clear his name by taking the stand during his trial. Of course most of the time this is not a good idea but the man is guilty as hell so we're sure he will go out of his way to show that he isn't a bad guy. In e-mails expected to be used at his Chicago trial, Black sounds very much like an aristocrat living off shareholders' largesse. "Care must be taken not to allow this [lifestyle] to degenerate into decadence," Black said in a memo sent to his turncoat deputy David Radler and others. "But nor should we allow the agitations of shareholders . . . to force us into a hair shirt, the corporate equivalent of sackcloth and ashes." CONRAD'S SNOOTY WORDS TO HAUNT HIM [NYP] Image [velochicdunord via Flickr]