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Rob Ford's Toronto
- Thread starter MetroMan
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dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Absolutely, I'm in at all downtown'ish events. Shirt on. A large group of us asking for answers and generally showing our displeasure with him is a great grass roots movement.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Also, on CBC this morning someone noted that his score is off the chart on ratemyteacher.com (I think that was the url).
What a week so far with these two bumbling idiots, with a day & a half to go!
EagleEye
Senior Member
That event on Lawrence is one I'm sure he'll go to since his camping office is located right there. I have emailed the organizer listed above and will post if I hear anything.
Crap, that email addy is dead.
Here is one from their site: wexfordbia@rogers.com
Crap, that email addy is dead.
Here is one from their site: wexfordbia@rogers.com
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kaboi
Active Member
Yes! I'm in.
I attended the light the Christmas tree event in NPS last winter (an event I would normally avoid like the plague) solely to boo Ford when he went on stage. I felt it was my civic duty.
But how are we to know where he will be so we can plan to be there?
L23
Active Member
No, it's the gang signs. He first made those pronouncements after the pics of RoFo with various gang members first came out.
tiffer24
Senior Member
Contempt of Rob Ford's media manipulation runs deep: The Star's Royson James
My last column about Toronto’s “gutless media†was not about the Toronto Star. But since some senior management at the paper want to make the Star and its reporters the issue, let’s engage.
From all across Canada, readers have emailed to add their voice to mine, offered in the strongest possible language. Pollsters, politicians, journalism professors, scribes, colleagues, venerable columnists and news personalities have written to say, “Thank you. . . Bravo!â€
My bosses? They take offence that I didn’t initially give them a chance to explain why they refused to boycott the Rob Ford invitation-only press conference.
(Why I would give the Star that privilege and not afford the same to the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Sun cannot be explained, except to say all people or corporations slagged by columnists should be given a chance to respond to the opinion before it is published. Hmmmm. Let’s see how that works, going forward).
(Insert Star view here).
Management clings to the claim that my column would have had the effect of impugning the character of Star reporter Daniel Dale if managing editor Jane Davenport did not intervene to insert the fact that Dale tried — and failed — to get the Star to stage a boycott of the staged “news conference.â€
It’s a huge stretch, of course. Dale was not the focus of the column; neither was the Star. In fact, Dale was the only reporter given props in the column when it was pointed out that he hurled questions at Ford, interrupting the propaganda.
Such corporate positioning dominates our daily journalistic lives. Political operatives and corporate spin doctors think they can explain their way out of every pickle. They think their crafted words will somehow change a columnist’s opinion of what is outrageous.
After meeting with Davenport and city editor Irene Gentle Wednesday, I’m even more contemptuous of last Monday’s media capitulation, characterized by one reader as Silly Putty in the hands of the master manipulator.
To recap, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford returned from rehab, held a news conference in which he said he would take no questions, staged the event in the smallest possible locale, limited the number of journalists, excluded the press gallery president and others. The chosen ones went in, “dutifully†I say, to play stenographers, instead of boycotting what was, in effect, an infomercial.
As one reader disparaged: “They were not bullied; they obeyed. Might as well not leave the office and just print the press release.â€
The “boycott†is just one option. As one Star reporter emailed Wednesday, all the Star had to say was, “We are not going. We invite others to follow our example. But whatever decision they make, we have made our choice.â€
Instead, Davenport offers: The Star has been so vigorous in its pursuit of Rob Ford that readers have complained that the paper is biased. To lead a boycott would have been to play into that belief.
Well, boss, that ship has sailed. As I challenged all media on Monday, grow some spine.
I was there outside the mayor’s office Monday. I saw the mayor’s henchmen call out the names of the chosen ones, fascist-like. I watched accredited media who work out of rented offices at city hall and cover our government day by day reduced to begging and pleading to be allowed in.
It was contemptible. Shaken, I tried to gain entry so I could shout, “No, I’m not going in unless Now magazine and The Mirror and The Canadian Press and all my colleagues are allowed in.â€
As I watched the rejected reporters pitifully flail away, questions brushed aside by the imprimatur of the chief magistrate, I thought: “How dare you bring your goons into the people’s hall to keep representatives of the people at bay?â€
It was instinctive, the anger rising inside me. It was not a product of bravery or practiced advocacy, just organic rage. Our bosses should see this, feel it, experience it. Then they might think twice before directing beat reporters to attend such events made odious by media managers.
A mayor has the right to give one-on-one interviews to whomever he wants. But he cannot be allowed, with us as accomplices, to hold a news conference and pick and choose the attendees. Period.
I mentioned three names in the column — to give readers a taste of what is was like to witness the roll call — not to malign those particular beat reporters. As a columnist, I have more privilege to stage a personal protest. The beat reporters should not have been put in that position. We — all of us in this industry who care about freedom of the press — could have done so much better.
Readers know how I feel about Dale. He sits two desks over from me. When Rob Ford lied and said Dale peered over his backyard fence, I wrote that I believe Daniel Dale. He has no guile.
Over the two years during which the Star faced snide remarks from other journalists, when Talk Radio laid the groundwork for callers to state that the Star was making up stories about the mayor, this columnist vouched for the integrity of Robyn Doolittle, Kevin Donovan and Daniel Dale. I never flinched in the furor those columns stirred.
So, now, not to put lipstick on the pig, I am offended that at a time when we should be resolute and united in our opposition to the beginnings of tyranny, we are distracted by corporate hegemony.
(Insert Star view here).
My last column about Toronto’s “gutless media†was not about the Toronto Star. But since some senior management at the paper want to make the Star and its reporters the issue, let’s engage.
From all across Canada, readers have emailed to add their voice to mine, offered in the strongest possible language. Pollsters, politicians, journalism professors, scribes, colleagues, venerable columnists and news personalities have written to say, “Thank you. . . Bravo!â€
My bosses? They take offence that I didn’t initially give them a chance to explain why they refused to boycott the Rob Ford invitation-only press conference.
(Why I would give the Star that privilege and not afford the same to the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Sun cannot be explained, except to say all people or corporations slagged by columnists should be given a chance to respond to the opinion before it is published. Hmmmm. Let’s see how that works, going forward).
(Insert Star view here).
Management clings to the claim that my column would have had the effect of impugning the character of Star reporter Daniel Dale if managing editor Jane Davenport did not intervene to insert the fact that Dale tried — and failed — to get the Star to stage a boycott of the staged “news conference.â€
It’s a huge stretch, of course. Dale was not the focus of the column; neither was the Star. In fact, Dale was the only reporter given props in the column when it was pointed out that he hurled questions at Ford, interrupting the propaganda.
Such corporate positioning dominates our daily journalistic lives. Political operatives and corporate spin doctors think they can explain their way out of every pickle. They think their crafted words will somehow change a columnist’s opinion of what is outrageous.
After meeting with Davenport and city editor Irene Gentle Wednesday, I’m even more contemptuous of last Monday’s media capitulation, characterized by one reader as Silly Putty in the hands of the master manipulator.
To recap, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford returned from rehab, held a news conference in which he said he would take no questions, staged the event in the smallest possible locale, limited the number of journalists, excluded the press gallery president and others. The chosen ones went in, “dutifully†I say, to play stenographers, instead of boycotting what was, in effect, an infomercial.
As one reader disparaged: “They were not bullied; they obeyed. Might as well not leave the office and just print the press release.â€
The “boycott†is just one option. As one Star reporter emailed Wednesday, all the Star had to say was, “We are not going. We invite others to follow our example. But whatever decision they make, we have made our choice.â€
Instead, Davenport offers: The Star has been so vigorous in its pursuit of Rob Ford that readers have complained that the paper is biased. To lead a boycott would have been to play into that belief.
Well, boss, that ship has sailed. As I challenged all media on Monday, grow some spine.
I was there outside the mayor’s office Monday. I saw the mayor’s henchmen call out the names of the chosen ones, fascist-like. I watched accredited media who work out of rented offices at city hall and cover our government day by day reduced to begging and pleading to be allowed in.
It was contemptible. Shaken, I tried to gain entry so I could shout, “No, I’m not going in unless Now magazine and The Mirror and The Canadian Press and all my colleagues are allowed in.â€
As I watched the rejected reporters pitifully flail away, questions brushed aside by the imprimatur of the chief magistrate, I thought: “How dare you bring your goons into the people’s hall to keep representatives of the people at bay?â€
It was instinctive, the anger rising inside me. It was not a product of bravery or practiced advocacy, just organic rage. Our bosses should see this, feel it, experience it. Then they might think twice before directing beat reporters to attend such events made odious by media managers.
A mayor has the right to give one-on-one interviews to whomever he wants. But he cannot be allowed, with us as accomplices, to hold a news conference and pick and choose the attendees. Period.
I mentioned three names in the column — to give readers a taste of what is was like to witness the roll call — not to malign those particular beat reporters. As a columnist, I have more privilege to stage a personal protest. The beat reporters should not have been put in that position. We — all of us in this industry who care about freedom of the press — could have done so much better.
Readers know how I feel about Dale. He sits two desks over from me. When Rob Ford lied and said Dale peered over his backyard fence, I wrote that I believe Daniel Dale. He has no guile.
Over the two years during which the Star faced snide remarks from other journalists, when Talk Radio laid the groundwork for callers to state that the Star was making up stories about the mayor, this columnist vouched for the integrity of Robyn Doolittle, Kevin Donovan and Daniel Dale. I never flinched in the furor those columns stirred.
So, now, not to put lipstick on the pig, I am offended that at a time when we should be resolute and united in our opposition to the beginnings of tyranny, we are distracted by corporate hegemony.
(Insert Star view here).
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basic
Senior Member
Yes, the time is right at this point.
pattycakes
Senior Member
Good blog on Rob's "Having a Disease" excuse:
"Being sick doesn’t get you a free asshat pass."
"Someone has had to clean up Ford’s vomit all these years. There are accounts of him physically attacking city staff. He has used every racial epithet in the book, been lewd and crude, and failed on all counts of humanity. But we are to pity him and forgive, because He Has A Disease.
The first thing they teach you in therapy - any kind of therapy - is to get your head out of your ass, you narcissistic whiner, and take responsibility. For you. For your actions. For your relationships. For the messes, for the bullshit, for the crapping on people. And most importantly, for managing your disease."
http://linkis.com/www.diycouturier.com/YIYUa
"Being sick doesn’t get you a free asshat pass."
"Someone has had to clean up Ford’s vomit all these years. There are accounts of him physically attacking city staff. He has used every racial epithet in the book, been lewd and crude, and failed on all counts of humanity. But we are to pity him and forgive, because He Has A Disease.
The first thing they teach you in therapy - any kind of therapy - is to get your head out of your ass, you narcissistic whiner, and take responsibility. For you. For your actions. For your relationships. For the messes, for the bullshit, for the crapping on people. And most importantly, for managing your disease."
http://linkis.com/www.diycouturier.com/YIYUa
nfitz
Superstar
Surely Doug Ford's completely baseless accusations of racism against Joe Killoran are a violation of the Code of Conduct for Members of Council.
Article XIV - Discreditable Conduct "All members of Council have a duty to treat members of the public, one another, and staff appropriately and without abuse, bullying or intimidation". Surely going to the media to accuse someone of racism, without even the slightest shred of proof, is a violation of this provision.
Article XIV - Discreditable Conduct "All members of Council have a duty to treat members of the public, one another, and staff appropriately and without abuse, bullying or intimidation". Surely going to the media to accuse someone of racism, without even the slightest shred of proof, is a violation of this provision.
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pattycakes
Senior Member
Someone's organizing a "shirtless horde" for Rob's appearance tomorrow at 1010.
junior43
Active Member
Wow. It`s like Royson is double dog dare`n the Star to fire him. Good ethical stand though. Hopefully there`s a lot of healthy discussions going on in the editorial offices of all the papers.
Slightly off topic, but the press should do the same to Harper with the prescreening questions and limit of 5 questions, etc. Obviously not as bad as the Ford`s, but it`s the same premise of limiting journalists and access.
Slightly off topic, but the press should do the same to Harper with the prescreening questions and limit of 5 questions, etc. Obviously not as bad as the Ford`s, but it`s the same premise of limiting journalists and access.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
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Rob must have been out buying bananas or toilet paper during that session
James_D
Active Member
Is that copied and pasted from an official document? Because that spelling of discreditable isn't even close!
It's amazing but that definition basically describes rob and doug's entire time in council. That is their standard code of conduct.
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