The Ford brothers co-host a two-hour radio program on NewsTalk 1010 every Sunday afternoon. They spent the first hour of the most recent show recapping their recent trade mission, dozens of city officials and business leaders in tow, to Chicago. Ford had proudly boasted that the trip wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime, comments that were called into question last week after Councillor Michael Thompson said that though he’d travelled to Chicago, he wasn’t paying for it himself. During Sunday’s show, Mayor Ford repeated, without elaboration, his contention that the trip wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything. Just ’cause.
The real drama began after the next news break, where 1010 reporter James Moore (serving as the news anchor on that weekend shift) reiterated what had already been reported — despite what the Mayor keeps saying, Thompson’s comments cast that suggestion into doubt. After the news, when the show came back, the Ford brothers tore into the media. Doug Ford described the media, collectively, as “a bunch of whiny, sucky little kids. They whine and cry and moan and sensationalize and lie through their teeth.” “They’re pathological liars,” the Mayor agreed. He later made clear that “these people” in the media included 1010′s James Moore.
OK, so the Fords are scrapping with the media. Nothing new to see there. That’s their default reaction to pretty much anything. But this was different. I am very familiar with 1010′s studio — I’m there a few times a week to take part in round tables and have the pleasure of hosting a show there, when John Tory is absent, as his fill-in. When the Fords were railing against Moore, he would have been no more than eight feet away, separated from the broadcast studio by a glass window.
Think about that for a second. The Mayor and his brother are saying that the media are babies. That they’re dishonest. That they’re out to get the Fords.
Meanwhile, they’re saying this during the two hours of live air-time that 1010 gives them, once a week, and while within spitting distance of the man they’re responding to, whom they didn’t have the courtesy to identify by name or actually engage in a conversation. Nope. Just declare him a pathological liar, on the air, and move on, all while declaring that the media wants the city to go bankrupt and are always out to get you.
Who, exactly, sounds like the whiny, sucky baby here? (Hint: It’s not the guy reading the news.)
The Fords have had some successes since being elected. I like some of what they’ve done. And I have stood up for them, publicly in this newspaper, when I felt that the media was treating them unfairly. I’ll continue to do so. And they aren’t the first politicians to see value in scrapping with the media.
But for all their boasts of giving as good as they get it and keeping their chin straps tight, one can’t help but feel that the Fords fear what a little honest reporting might make of their glass jaws.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Matt Gurney
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