Because the ever-petulant Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, backed by his always doting and sycophantic executive, continues to boycott The Toronto Star on all official notices and pronouncements from his office, the paper has decided to file an official complaint with the city's integrity commissioner.
As reported in an article by Torstar Chair John Honderich in today's edition, the genesis of Ford's childish edict is a story that the paper ran during the mayoral campaign about his conduct as a football coach. At the time, Ford the candidate said he was going to sue the paper for libel, but never followed up on his threat, and has since stipulated that his freeze will stay in place until the Star runs an apology above the fold on page 1. As he recently told reporter Daniel Dale, “I don’t talk to the Star till you guys apologize. You guys (are) liars.”
Putting aside the howls of outrage that would have attended such a proclamation had a liberal mayor issued such a fatwah against a right-wing news organization, the Star, I believe, is right when it says that his boycott raises a serious issue of abuse of power and directly affects [their] ability to cover city hall and serve [their] readers.
The issue clearly goes beyond one person with an axe to grind. Ford, because of the political power he wields, was able to get political compliance from his executive committee to shelve Councillor Adam Vaughan's “free press and democracy” motion [that] would have prohibited city employees and politicians from excluding any specific journalist or news outlet from any “media conference,” “media event” or news release.
It has been said that all politics is local. That is also probably the best place to take a stand against political corruption as well.
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