No. 74: CONRAD BLACK & BARBARA AMIEL / Strange occurrences on the midnight shift in the tabloid newsroom

How my first job in a morally indefensible workplace could have been my last. How I narrowly avoided a morals rap. How I might have been labelled a pervert.

WHEN I WAS STARTING OUT in the news business, I worked midnights on the police desk at the Toronto Sun. What my first full-time job had to do with writing and reporting, I don’t know. I was in a newspaper office but nothing I did was newspapering. The simple tasks I was barely trusted with were more clerical than journalistic.

In many ways, the midnight shift was less exciting than my previous job during schooldays, that year when I was a newsroom gopher and copy boy. I met a lot of fascinating people in those heady days. By met, I mean I crossed paths with them. I was the one they sent to fetch coffee and other stuff less dignified. The famous made indelible impressions on me and I none at all on them.

I met Peter …