April
1997 - Conrad Blackterium Strikes Southam
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In 1996, Conrad Black and his company Hollinger took a controlling interest in Southam. With that addition to his corporate media interests, Black is now effectively in command of close to half of Canada's daily newspapers. When the Council of Canadians challenged Black's media monopoly in court, the presiding federal judge informed them that they had no status in intervening as they were only "ordinary Canadians." To counter this state of media affairs, on April 16, 1997, the Council declared National Press Freedom Day. Guerrilla Media joined the celebration.
THE ACTION: A team of a dozen people spent two days stencilling and mounting "Black Contaminated Ink." warning certificates on 1,000 clear plastic construction bags. Starting at 6 a.m. on action day, more than thirty people bagged 900 Vancouver Sun and Province boxes. By 7:30 a.m., thousands of commuters were passing by the boxes on their way to work.
STRATEGY: Nothing succeeds like parodying a loathsome corporate pig like Conrad Black.
MEDIA: As the reporter at the Province's city desk informed GM, "half of us like it, the other half doesn't." When asked who fell into which camp, she said that it was senior managers and editors who took a poor view to the stunt. Later in the day, the Province's assignment editor told GM that she was going to put a reporter on the story. In the next day's edition, nothing appeared. However, even though BC's two big dailies shut GM out, several radio stations and urban community papers carried the story.
WRAP-UP: On GM's own voice-mail, we received over 45 calls – the most we have seen for many an action. Half favoured the action, the other half were very hostile (probably Hollinger shareholders). Though this might be difficult to repeat in the Lower Mainland due to the media's usual fatigue with GM actions that target them directly, we believe this type of campaign can easily be carried out in other cities with similar success. Moreover, this is a very inexpensive project to undertake.