Embrace the ruthlessness, I say. What the Star is doing to Mr. Ford, Fleet Street’s newspapers have done to British politicians for generations, and there’s no time for sympathy. The careers they ruin are trophies for their mantelpieces and objects of jealousy for their competitors.
Actually, I can get on board with this – the moment that journalists stalk each other with the same predatory venom. The more journalistic careers left in ruin, the better. After all, in this day and age, a reporter is little more than a person who wants to shape public policy without going to the bother of getting elected.
I have always found Chris Selley to be a clever man with words, if somewhat acerbic, when dealing with the Right. But then, what’s new, they tend to hate anyone who doesn’t play the buffoon in politics – like Stephen Harper. Oh, and I might add to that, he looks the part of someone of his generation. That is not kind, but it’s the same game Selley plays.
Right on, Kate.
The other group that needs to be hounded unmercifully, if the journos are to be fair (yuk, yuk), is the Left-Lib crowd. Why is it only Mayor Ford who’s being “outed” and attacked? There must be Leftards by the legions who drink too much — and nearly always on the public dime.
Expose them, too, you parasitic, biased, bigoted bastards.
Given Kate’s point about the MSM being more interested in shaping public policy than reporting, I read Selley’s column as a call for new media (blogggers) to ruthlessly pursue the personal lives of journalists. I wonder if anybody else got the same message?
Selley: “The Star sent a reporter to Huntsville because Mr. Ford had skipped out on the Pride Parade to spend time with family; if he wasn’t there, say, that would have been a story.”
Uh, yeah. The Star always has to have a story about Mayor Ford. Their MO is never leave the guy alone. (‘Wonder if that’s driven him to drink? One could be sympathetic.)
How about ruthlessness across the board, Mr. Selley? The story here isn’t that it’s good for media hyenas to harass public figures; the story is that the journo jackals do it only to public figures on the right side of the political spectrum and leave the Leftards alone. The story here is the ruthless, relentless negative coverage of Toronto’s mayor. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything as ugly and nasty as this harassment of a duly elected politician. The Left are sore losers and believe that Mayor Ford’s win is fair fodder for their rage.
It’s not, they’re total jerks, and Mr. S[m]elley is wrong.
If the so called journalists went after Mr Trudeau, Mr Layton, etc. with the same ferocity they go after Rob Ford then I’d agree with Selley.
However they don’t. They have different standards for the elite. Hence the contrast Blatchford was referring to.
The best journalsts I know have long left the newsrooms for corporate communications gigs.
The only journos left are those not marketable enough to work anywhere else, mostly because of their insufferable and misplaced sense of their own importance.
I have to disagree Kate. These days an MSM or consensus media reporter is a droid who never investigates anything and simply regurgitates the scripted releases or false accusations of their chosen political patrons. In the near future what passes for MSM political news could be accomplished with hologram political spokesmen and robot link farms.
Selly’s collum reads like a list of things he wished he had done himself.
I’m guessing the only thing holding him back is that it would involve some actual effort on his part. So acting as cheerleader for muckrakers is his metier.
Can’t be too hard for some enterprising citizen to find out the watering hole of the local press corps and stand next to them and talk about:
– how great America is
– how gun control sucks and is un-Canadian
– Canada’s principled leadership on the world stage
and capture the result on video. Punch back twice as hard, as the professor says.
I have it on excellent authority that Chris Selley’s hair really is as greasy as it appears in that National Post “woodcut”, which says a lot about the talent of the artist who creates them. Kudos!
oh yes, and didn’t Harpo put that cracker (host) in his pocket?
lefties, lies, lies, and more lies, they lie all the time.
Hallelujah SDH!!!!! Wooo hooo! FINALLY someone comes out & supports an idea I have been yapping about since the press attacked Stockwell Day!
Do what you said. Record the resulting conversation. Then make peace apologize. Buy them a round & make friends (but don’t record that). Get their names & where they work. Gaush over them. Tell them how great they are until you get all the information you need. Quuicklt edit the video. Enter subtitles on the video telling the reporters name & who they work for and their email address. Then,- BOOM!- OFF TO YOUTUBE!!
After you put it on Youtube. contact every conservative blog you can find to garner as many hits as you can. Encourage them through e-mail to click on the video several times to increase hits. Encourage this for a couple of days and THEN and ONLY THEN(after the Youtube video has thousands of hits) send an email of complaint to the publisher of the paper.
When the publisher takes days to figure out what’s going on hold that evidence up as a prize that the newspaper doesn’t care.
I never read his crap.
Huge difference. Journalists don’t represent the city at public events. They don’t spend public money. If the mayor is showing up to events sh*tfaced, voters have the right to know.
I agree with you Gerald but I do not recall anonymous interviews with every barkeep in Councilor Bailao’s neighbourhood after she got a DUI or with every masseuse in town to see who their fave political leader and repeat customer was. If Selley really wants to “embrace ruthlessness” he has missed a lot of opportunities to do so.
Huge difference. The MSM never does this to their liberal-leftist political bosses/allies.
Gerald Sicosia on March 29, 2013 1:08 PM—
The public’s RIGHT TO KNNNOOOOOWWWW” DUM DA DA DUUUUMMMM!!!! Oh my goodness how noble you are!
Please! Like these pond scum journalists have EVER CARED about the public! Journalists don’t spend public money uhhh except when they are desperate to remove a duly elected leader who is against lavish spending. Screw you dick head.
Where was the TorStar ruthless streak when Jack Lyton was getting his paddy whacked & sucked dry by some underage Asian girls in Toeonto whorehouse?
Guess all their reporters were too busy to cover the St. Jacko the Whacko character defect and cover up story.
Or at the bar and too drunk?
And when are the Toronto reporters going to look at Olivia Chow’s expense accounts?
Olivia and Jack routinely racked up some the highest expenses in the HofC.Common sense says that a married couple should have spent less than independent MPs,but they managed to spend more,and no one cares.
The brave men and women of the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph outdo themselves exposing the Islamic menace, detail Eurocrat plots to rob Britain of the little independence she has left, and give UKIP and other British patriots a fair hearing. Naturally the elites hate them, given their habit of exposing them as traitors and perverts.
Britain cursed with the Canadian press, content to publish Liberal Party press releases and slander loyal Canadians who objected to the Grit agenda, would by now by a basketcase like Teigland, where emigration of the plain people ran at rates only matched by east Germany before the Wall and only a quangocrat, a Pakistani or a Romanian Gypsy would dream of living if he had a choice.
If we had anything like the British press, meanwhile, we might still be a free country.
Hey it’s not everyday you see a greasy, shifty eyed, tub of lard with cross dresser hair call for more “ruthlessness”.
When did you know Prime Minister Of Canada candidate, Mayor Jack Layton was involved in organized crime and why didn’t you say anything?
Mr. Selley’s column is junk — this has nothing to do with the British tabloid media or the accountability of politicians or any such, in this case, tangential consideration, blah, blah, blah. In most respects, it has nothing to do with Mr. Ford’s use or abuse of alcohol.
The bottom line is very simple — Rob Ford is unacceptable to the Toronto Star editorial board. And having beaten them at their own game, they’re calling him a drunk — and they won’t let go of that.
So the decision for the people of Toronto is very simple: are they prepared to cave to the Toronto Star editorial board in the interest of “social peace”, which is the same tactic the same outfit used against Mike Harris, which led us to Premier Deficit, sorry Dad, or are they prepared to live the way they want to live, as free-born people — and have government “govern themselves accordingly”, as the posturing lame-o lawyers say.
The ever morally pure and ethically superior Mr. Selley would love to answer all the accusations presented in these comments unfortunately it’s the long weekend and like all the rest of the journalists in the country he passed out puking, shitpants drunk about 16 hours ago and hasn’t woke up yet.
Better question is not how much they drink but how much dope they smoke.
Spent some time lately with a radio/TV news media lefty, discussing the left-right positions of stories and opinions.
He showed his hand a few times, much to my delight.
He explained how he has now left the industry because he sees the media playing to advertisers and not at all concerned about “finding the truth”. The management and editors see the NEWS as filler, the real objective is to capture the attention of the people viewing and listening to pay attention to the advertisers, because that is what pays the bills. There is no money in news. The money is in the marketing and advertising.
There is a concentrated and concerted effort to shape the viewers to match the businesses. Eg: Beer companies want heavy drinkers, the media run pro drinking stories, the little guy fighting the bad cops who beat them up while in a drunken rage. The readers see the story from the “poor victim’s” point of view.
The true power comes in boycotting the advertisers in the media. Walk into their businesses, pick up a bunch of their goods and walk up to the till, asking for the manager. Drop the stuff on the counter and look straight in their eyes and show them how much business they just lost out on because they advertise in the given medium. That happens a few times a day or week and you will see change in the businesses doing the advertising.
Take a look at the CTV obit for Ralph Klein, it’s in the 3rd sentence before they get to Ralph running a campaign out of a bar. It isn’t important that Ralph wasn’t liked by the “eastern media types”, he enjoyed having a drink, so it’s open season on his policies because his judgement can be called into question.
When the story of John A. MacDonald was taught to me in school, my liberal teachers couldn’t help but mention how much gin he was drinking. Always noting that with any judgement some politicians make, it’s somehow tainted with alcohol. Their decisions are always tainted, when you’re a liberal.
Regardless of how Rob Ford conducts himself in private, or if he does have a drink in public isn’t even important, he would simply have to go away and allow anyone else on the left be mayor of Toronto for the media to leave him alone. That’s what they want.
Gerald Sicosia, you might want to read the last sentence of Kate’s post again.
Richfisher, when was Jack Layton mayor of anything?
And, yes, the media should go after lefties as vigorously as they go after Ford. I remember how appalled the Ottawa media was when Susan Delacourt, then of the Globe, called out then-Liberal leader John Turner for being a chronic drunk. But I still think people should know if the mayor of their town is showing up at public events so drunk that he’s a embarrassment to the city.
Gerald Sicosia, Wow, are you ever an idiot. Being a national leader of a major political party is a bit more of a profile than being a mayor of ANY city.
Then you say …”media should go after lefties as vigorously as they go after Ford”. but then continue to bitch about Ford.
When the media start treating left wing politicians the same as conservatives you will see less of the outrage like that which has been posted here. Try hard to wrap your handicapped brain around that fact. try hard.
Idjut Johnny, it was Richmimbnuts who said layon was corrupt when he was “mayor”
Awww Gerald don’t change your name to Larry to reply to me, ok?
Who cares if Richfisher typed the wrong thing inhis haste to comment? The point still stands that Jack off Layton got a free pass by the media.
After all, in this day and age, a reporter is little more than a person who wants to shape public policy without going to the bother of getting elected.
Brilliant!
“a reporter is little more than a person who wants to shape public policy without going to the bother of getting elected” – Kate
Like Zeppo says above, brilliant!
The real issue is the total absence of “reporters” and the plague called “journalists”.
Did I say “mayor”?
I meant “Jim Jones of City H.. er uhm, “city councilor”, right you are.
I live in Olivia’s riding, used to see him in the neighbourhood; he looked like a nut that was always doing an over the top bad James Cagney, balls-of-the-feet, puffed-up-chest, short man syndrome guy.
Dude stood out in a crowd it was so wacked.
Read the kooky messages left in chalk to Jack as he laid in State under armed guard in City Hall.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/24/photos-jack-layton-toront_n_935231.html
After all, in this day and age, a reporter is little more than a person who wants to shape public policy without going to the bother of getting elected.
When was freedom of speech abolished? Does this rule apply to Charles Adler? This blog?
A couple of weeks ago, by the SCOC. Yes it applies to this blog.
Seldom take anything the MSM says seriously; partisan talking heads and cheerleaders
@marc, very funny. But in what world is it inappropriate for unelected people to try to influence or shape public policy? Is it inappropriate for people to write to their MPs? To put up election signs? To operate blogs? How far are you willing to go with this argument?
At least man up and have the balls to say that only applies to those individuals with whom you personally disagree.
You asked “When was freedom of speech abolished?” I think Marc is referring to this: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Supreme+Court+Canada+ruling+blow+free+speech/8054026/story.html
And I’m willing to bet he’s not a fan of that disgusting decision, BTW.
freedom of speech was abolished during the trudeau reign of terror
freedom of speech was abolished during trudeau’s reign of terror