Patricia Best had this in her globeandmail.com blog:

The set-up is that CanWest Global patriarch Izzy Asper, in his heart of hearts, really didn't believe in journalistic independence. If you worked for him, you were his puppet (the Shawinigate stories in the National Post were a particular bug up his ass). The Aspers took control of Southam from Conrad Black in 2000, paving the way to riches beyond their wildest dreams:

Eldest son David Asper was equally adamant that the family had the right to push their opinions down their journalists' throats. “We own the paper,” Mr. Newman recounts David as saying. “We have the right to have the papers print whatever the hell we want them to say. And if people don't like it, they can go to hell. They can leave, get another job. People knew that Conrad had a much more hands-off policy. On the other hand, in the papers he cared about, he hired people who didn't breathe without talking to him first. We inherited some of those people – for better or for worse.”