It's no surprise that the Mayor Rob Ford drugs/video/drunken stupor scandal has been dominating the local media for the past week and more. The Toronto Star, in particular, has gone completely overboard, with front page headlines in gigantic type and numerous "special editions". Some days, the scuzzy saga has pushed just about every other news story out of the paper completely.
However, one story has appeared regularly, despite the Ford mania. What do you think that might be? The Senate expenses scandal? The Syrian conflict?? US gubernatorial elections??? No, none of the above. After the Rob Ford scandal itself, the second-biggest story has been.....how global media have been covering the Rob Ford scandal!! The newspapers have printed collages of screen captures about the Ford saga from the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, El Pais and so on, while the local broadcast media have endlessly recycled clips from the BBC World Service, US current affairs shows and even the late night talk show circuit.
It's all symptomatic of Toronto's remarkable immaturity. It may just have surpassed Chicago to become the third most populous city in North America, but it remains as needy as a toddler. Just ahead of Mayor Ford's bizarre press conference on Tuesday, the Star's sports columnist, Cathal Kelly, tweeted that Toronto was finally about to enjoy a "global moment". People may be mercilessly mocking the city, but hey, at least they're talking about us!!
Instead of just tallying up the mentions it's getting in the global media, the city really needs to listen to what's being said. Last night Anderson Cooper discussed the scandal at length with a heavyweight panel that included Christiane Amanpour, PJ O'Rourke and Andrew Sullivan. They were joined on video from Toronto by one of the journalists who has done the most to uncover the scandal, the Star's babe-tastic civic affairs reporter, Robyn Doolittle.
There was a lot of chortling about the Mayor's transgressions, but as Ms Doolittle attempted to explain how he was able to cling to office, and how nobody could compel him to resign, the panelists' expressions changed from amusement to amazement. They were at a loss to understand how Canada has no equivalent to the US "recall" procedure for dealing with out-of-control politicians. It's not as if political bad boys are unknown in this country, but there's nothing more robust than the honour system to deal with miscreants.
In the case of Mayor Ford, that's very obviously not enough. The media are belatedly awakening to the need to equip municipalities, or even better, the citizenry, with an enforceable mechanism to deal with this sort of thing in the future. Another Rob Ford may not show up any time soon -- to quote SJ Perelman, "before they made him, they broke the mould" -- but it's abundantly clear that changes should be made, and quickly. Even if that does mean that Toronto will no longer get the attention it craves.
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