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Toronto Star Statement to Ontario Press Council

Ladies and gentlemen of the Ontario Press Council, members of the public, and

fellow journalists:

The Toronto Star is pleased to be given the opportunity to talk about the front page

story of Friday, May 17. The story described the attempts by people involved in the

drug trade to sell a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking what appears to be

crack cocaine. It detailed how two Toronto Star reporters, Kevin Donovan and

Robyn Doolittle, were shown this video by a drug dealer and his associate, one of

whom was involved in making the video. In the video, the mayor was heard to make

disparaging comments about minorities and homosexuals.

The May 17 story springboarded off a year long investigation by Star reporters intoallegations that Mayor Ford had a substance abuse problem for which his own staff

was urging him unsuccessfully to seek treatment.

The council has decided to hear a complaint from Ms Darylle Donley. Here is the

complaint:

I would be curious to know just how far a TV or radio reporter or newspaper person,

has to go before they are sanctioned and curtailed?

The Ford brothers are being lied about, innuendos and allegations are being made

against them. The news should be concrete and proven truth.Two Somali drug dealers? If these are two real people would they possibly be

capable of creative videography? Or does your office believe that no one would do

such a thing?

It appears that the days of obtaining reliable news from one's daily newspaper is

long gone.

I might as well purchase NOW, Tattler or People, or some similar gossip paper to

obtain my information. I could always watch TMZ, too; yet more stretched

information.

I am curious to know what your criteria is regarding mistruths and allegations in theOntario newspapers.

Thank you for your anticipated reply.

Darylle Donley

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The press council said in a letter to us that we at the Star are not to concern ourselves

this morning with whether the story is true or not. But I must tell you now - and with

great emphasis - that the story is true. Every word of it.

I ask for your indulgence here because I would like to read the first two paragraphs

of the story in question.

A cellphone video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine is

being shopped around Toronto by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade.

Two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times. It appears to show

Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling

from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an

off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Fordcoaches.

The press council has asked the Star to provide an opening statement that addresses

the three following points:

1. Did the Star article deal with a matter that is in the public interest ?

2. Were adequate efforts made to verify the allegations ?

3. Was Mr. Ford given adequate notice of the allegations and a reasonableopportunity to respond, and did the newspaper include that response in its reporting?

First, the public interest question.

Two experienced Star reporters, one of them the leading investigative reporter in our

country, watch a video of the mayor of Canada's largest city smoking what appears to

be crack cocaine and making disparaging comments about minorities and

homosexuals. And they watch that video THREE times. They see it with their owneyes and hear it with their own ears.

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The video was clear and distinct, not blurry or shaky, and the mayor's voice was

slurred but his face was clear. In our package we have provided you with a copy of

the story, other reference material, and a full-frame photograph the Star ran alongside

the May 17 story.

This photo was taken outside of what the people of Toronto now understand to be a

notorious crackhouse. This bungalow was later a target of one of the search warrants

in the Project Traveller raids that saw the arrests of numerous people and the seizure

of drugs and guns.

Pictured with Mayor Ford in the photo are three men who were all alleged members

of the Dixon City Crew, a gang running drugs and guns gang in north Etobicoke. The

men are: Anthony Smith (who was murdered in a shooting earlier this year),

Muhammad Khattak (injured in the same shooting), and Monir Kassim. Kassim was

arrested and charged with drug and gun offences in the Project Traveller raids andKhattak with drug offences.

The issue of guns and drugs falls within the public interest. Toronto Police Chief Bill

Blair, at the Project Traveller press conference, spoke of the disastrous effects guns,

drugs and gangs have on our community. Blair said these activities have a

devastating impact on communities and on families and on those who are victims of

violence and crime in our communities.

That the Mayor of Toronto has any connection with people connected to these guns

and drugs gangs is something that is very much in the public interest and that is why

the Star explored this issue and continues to explore the issue.

Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court of Canada has some views on what is in the public

interest.

Here are two key paragraphs on what the judges said in a 2009 decision ruling on

what is responsible journalism:

"To be of public interest, the subject matter must be shown to be one inviting publicattention, or about which the public has some substantial concern because it affects

the welfare of citizens, or one to which considerable public notoriety or controversy

has attached."

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In our respectful opinion, connections between drug dealers, gun dealers, a notorious

crack house, and the chief magistrate of Canadas largest city fit the definition of

something that can and should be explored in the public interest.

The story the Star produced, and other related stories, were investigative journalism,

something the Star has committed a great deal of time and resources to.

The leading English case on public interest and responsible journalism states that

there is a compelling public interest in investigative journalism.

The court, in Reynolds, wrote:

There is no need to elaborate on the importance of the role discharged by the media

in the expression and communication of information and comment on political

matters. It is through the mass media that most people today obtain their informationon political matters. Without freedom of expression by the media, freedom of

expression would be a hollow concept. The interest of a democratic society in

ensuring a free press weighs heavily in the balance in deciding whether any

curtailment of this freedom bears a reasonable relationship to the purpose of the

curtailment. In this regard it shold be kept in mind that one of the contemporary

functions of the media is investigative journalism. This activity, as much as the

traditional activities of reporting and commenting is part of the vital role of the press

and the media generally.

At the Star, we want to be a good and useful citizen and we do our best to practice

responsible journalism in the public interest.

There was no doubt in our minds back on the evening of Thursday, May 16 and there

is no doubt now that the story of the video of the mayor of our city smoking what

appears to be crack cocaine and the photograph showing the mayor of our city

outside a notorious crackhouse was an example of responsible and useful journalism

and was in the public interest then and is in the public interest now. It meets all

known ethical and legal measures.

It is a story that is still playing out. In the months since the May 17 story, the Star has

reported on a police investigation into activities of people around the mayor and their

attempts to obtain the crack video in question. The people of Toronto have yet to

hear evidence in the Project Traveller court cases and related police activities. The

Chief of Police, Bill Blair, refused an opportunity to clear the mayor at a press

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conference called to explain the Project Traveller raids. There is clearly more to

come on this story and the Star and other media continue to report on these matters.

The second point the press council has asked The Star to address is the question of

our efforts to verify the allegations.

The thrust of the May 17 story was that people involved in the drug trade were trying

to sell a video of Mayor Ford that appeared to show him smoking crack cocaine. In

addition to attempts to sell the video to the Star, these men had contacted Gawker

and CNN. That is fact.

As to the contents of the video, two respected, veteran journalists viewed and heard

the video. They were allowed to pause the video. They questioned the men who

showed the video to the reporters and learned details about the circumstances in

which the video was shot.

Our story on May 17 was transparent. We told the reader what we knew and what we

did not know.

We saw the video a month before, after reporters Donovan and Doolittle

published a story detailing how the mayor was impaired at a charity ball. That

caused the men who had control of the video to contact the Star. During that month,

the reporters had frequent contact with people connected to the video and with others

who had knowledge of some of the mayors activities.

Mr. Chairman, the Star has a long and noble history of fine and unblemished

investigative reporting and this entire Mayor Ford series of stories was put together

over many months with the utmost care for accuracy, ethics and legalities.

Thirdly, the press council has asked if the Star gave Mayor Ford adequate notice of

the story and a reasonable opportunity to respond, and did we include that response

in our reporting?

So that the press council can understand how Mayor Ford deals with questions fromthe Star and other media we have attached a synopsis of our earlier attempts to get

comment from the Mayor on previous allegations of public impairment and

substance abuse. As the record shows, Mayor Ford does not respond to interview

requests from the Star.

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The Star has also attached a synopsis of our attempts to get comment from the Mayor

and his staff the night before the crack video story was published. As the synopsis

shows, the Star made numerous attempts to contact the Mayor, his chief of staff, his

brother (a councillor), and other people connected to the mayor.

Reporters visited Mayor Fords home and his brothers home. Reporters called the

Mayor and other officials in his office. We sent text messages. Our synopsis shows

we made at least 14 attempts to get comment.

A security guard at the Mayors home told the Star to leave. The Star, however, was

able to get comment from Mayor Fords lawyer, Dennis Morris. Mr. Morris told the

Star that the allegations were false and defamatory. Mr. Morris also questioned

how by viewing a video the viewer could determine what the person is actually

doing or smoking.

The Star also reached Mark Towhey, the Mayors chief of staff, and explained the

story to him and sought comment. Mr. Towhey hung up on the Star.

The Star included these responses in the story.

You may wonder why we did not go to Mayor Ford with questions about the video

earlier than that night.

The fact is, we couldn't. During the month that we were attempting to get possession

of the crack video we had promised our source we would keep our knowledge of the

video confidential until we were given the green light to report on it. The man was

scared, physically scared, of what would happen to both him and the drug dealer who

had possession of the video.

A quick word here about confidential sources. The media is often criticized, and

certainly has been in this case, for using such sources. The Supreme Court of Canada

made it very clear in the Grant v. The Toronto Star case that use of confidential

sources can be an important element of responsible journalism. We promised this

source that we would not identify him. We promised him that if he showed us thetape we would not tell the mayor we had seen it. And so we didnt. The source

feared that telling the mayor we had seen it would compromise him. At the Star we

dont break promises made to sources. But on the day the existence of the tape was

revealed by Gawker we immediately went to our source and he released us from our

promise.

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That is when we went to the Mayor and his staff to obtain comment. We did obtain

comment from the Mayors lawyer and a no comment from the Mayors chief of

staff.

To this day, the people of Toronto have yet to receive an explanation from Mayor

Ford for the video. His one comment was:

As for a video, I can't comment on a video I have never seen or does not exist.

One of the Stars subsequent stories detailed how the Mayor and members of his staff

discussed, on May 17, a potential location for the video. A video the mayor said did

not exist. The police are investigating this matter.

One of our most important values at the Star is our transparency and accountability.

We are pleased to answer in more detail any questions about our reporting on thatstory or any others.

Thank you for considering our submission.