Nelson Thall

Nelson Spencer Thall (born November 7, 1952) is a media scientist and Marshall McLuhan scholar most noted for his portrayal of media commentator Lenny Bloom. Thall is a member of one of the Five Families that controls the Toronto Star newspaper.^[1] One of the last graduate students of McLuhan, Thall produced and hosted the Corus Entertainment series Cloak & Dagger^[2] discussing the effects of media with guests such as Alex Jones, David Icke, and Andreas von Bülow. During the last two years of the show on Corus and later via online streaming radio, Lenny Bloom was joined by Chicago-based activist Sherman Skolnick.

As a former Director and Chief Archivist of the McLuhan Center On Global Communications^[3] Thall, in 1991, was the recipient of the Marshall McLuhan Distinguished Teachers Award and on May 7, 1996 represented the Writers Guild of Canada before the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal, writing the legal definition of terms such as 'multimedia' into law. Also in 1996, Bill Gates requested his contribution to 'Web-Weaving : Intranets, Extranets and Strategic Alliances' by Paula Boyle and Peter Lloyd where he updated the definition of The Global Village.^[4] From 1997 to 2002 he served on the Board of Directors of Torstar.^[5]

On December 30, 1999, Thall joined the board of directors of Stan Lee Media.^[6]

In April 2004, Toronto police entered Thall's residence without a search warrant^[7] thus contravening his rights as granted under the Canadian constitution. This illegal entry by police occurred only weeks after Cloak & Dagger Radio Show on AM640 broadcast live interviews with police informants who exposed internal police union corruption. Thall was arrested but never convicted, bail money and items seized returned to him by police. The break-in by police was reported in the newspaper.^[8] His lawyer, Edward Greenspan, claimed that his client was harassed as a result of his work on radio.

References

1. "A crack in the Torstar trust?". Retrieved 2016-09-13.
2. "Where Were You when Cloak and Dagger Was Killed?".
3. Dale, Stephen (1996-09-01). McLuhan's Children: The Greenpeace Message and the Media: The Greenpeace Message and the Media. Between the Lines. ISBN 9781926662176.
4. Boyle, Paula; Lloyd, Peter (2007-06-07). Web-Weaving. Routledge. ISBN 9781136349225.
5. "TORSTAR Corporation". 1999-04-18. Archived from the original on April 18, 1999. Retrieved 2016-01-02.
6. "Yahoo - One of the World's Leading Media Scientists Joins Stan Lee Media Board of Directors". 2000-03-03. Archived from the original on March 3, 2000. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
7. "The strange case of Mr. Thall". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2016-01-02.
8. "The strange case of Mr. Thall". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-12-31.