Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in purported video smoking crack cocaine!(Gawker, also T.Star)

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Willectro said:
You are entitled to believe what you want, but The Star and Gawker are profiting off this without any concrete evidence.
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This is a misleading assessment of the situation. Based on their reports, they do have concrete evidence--their experience of researching and personally watching the tape. It is not that they do not have concrete evidence, it's that you are not able to verify that evidence to your satisfaction.

This is not a state of confusion, this is either factually true or a massive and deliberate campaign of lies made up whole cloth to smear the mayor. There's no in-between. It's not second-hand reporting. It's not something getting lost in the chain of communication. It's not iffy. They are unambiguous about what they researched, what they saw, and how they saw it. That's as concrete as it gets.

If the tape doesn't exist, if they made it all up, by all means, what you're saying is correct (and everyone involved needs to be sued into oblivion). But if the tape does exist and everything they say appears on it is true, then the fact that the tape is not public should not prohibit them from speaking about it. Wouldn't you agree? It's not Schroedinger's cat.
 
PalaceBrother said:
Just to offer a friendly, dissenting opinion...I have personally experienced a situation where the Star outright lied for the purposes of a headline. I have had zero faith in their ethics since.

I want Ford gone too, but I don't trust the Star. That having been said, the activity surrounding this story is increasingly lending it speculative credence.
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I genuinely have no problem changing my opinion on the Star if I get good reason to, I was actually asking Willectro to provide something if he had anything that would explain his feelings for the paper.

If they outright lie to for the purpose of a headline, than totally, they deserve to have their rep hurt because of it. Do you remember what the headline was?
 
Kinitari said:
The irony of you saying this after our Somali conversation where you were wildly offensive in the Toronto thread, I hope, isn't lost on you.

Further - they posted a story that was entirely factual, and posted very quickly. But it's structure was offensive, they admitted it was offensive and they fixed it. If anything this should show how good of a paper the Star is. When you're a news agency, you're bound to fuck up - when you quickly and honestly own up to those fuck ups and make amends, then you are doing good.

Well, is discussing something that everyone else is discussing destroying his image? Gawker broke the story, every other news agency picked it up, and other news agencies have been breaking their own interesting/scandalous stories. Is The Star not allowed to weigh in?
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The irony is not lost on me, I'm a terrible person.

After they posted it and thousands read it, the damage is already done. I really don't see how this fixes what The Star initially wrote.

Would you have the same complaint if the circumstances were the same, but another group was used in the article?
 
BigJonsson said:
Someone claims Ford is going to call for an early election sometime today?!?!
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I... don't think the Mayor has that power? I mean does council even?

Edit: Oh yeah, resigning.... I guess that would work. In a fucking insane way of course but then again that's our Rob Ford.
 
Looks like the crackstarter is going to meet its goal. It's at $196,150 with 12 hours to go. In the past 2 hours it jumped 4-5 thousand dollars.
 
The guy at UrbanToronto says he just lost his source, the last thing he said was that Ford is going to call for an election


No way is council going to vote for an election, they can argue that it is a waste of money and demand he resign instead

FORD SPEAKS

lol apologizing for what he said about the media
 
Willectro said:
The irony is not lost on me, I'm a terrible person.

After they posted it and thousands read it, the damage is already done. I really don't see how this fixes what The Star initially wrote.
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It doesn't fix it, of course - fixing something like this isn't really possible. But whether or not they fixed their mistake isn't what's of value - but the fact that they quickly acknowledge it, apologize and promise to make efforts to be more conscious of these sorts of things in the future. When I was having the Somali conversation of you, I think I asked you to do the exact same things.

Would you have the same complaint if the circumstances were the same, but another group was used in the article?
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Of course. Any group. Sincerely. I'm not Somali myself or anything, so it's not because I was personally offended that I made those first comments.
 
Bamelin said:
I like Rob Ford and always thought he got picked on unfairly ... by the star and most city councillors in particular. Rob represented everything the left loathes and to see him voted into office by the public was a massive blow to their collective ego's. It tickled me to see somebody like Rob in office after David Miller whom I despised.

With that said I've seen enough "Rob" pictures floating around the internet to be reserved at this point in my support. All I can say is that I hope it's not true, but things are looking rather grim.

It's a shame really, as Rob (originally when he first got voted in) was the first real ray of conservative light we've had in a mayor in years.
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Have you paid any attention to Rod Ford as mayor or as councillor? If he's the ray of conservative light for Toronto, the right is fucked. He's never not been a screwup as a public official.
 
Bpatrol said:
Have you paid any attention to Rod Ford as mayor or as councillor? If he's the ray of conservative light for Toronto, the right is fucked. He's never not been a screwup as a public official.
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It's not as if his campaign to 'cut the gravy' has really paid off either. He's a moron when it comes to city building. He threatens to cut all city services over months and months, then it turns out they didn't need to cut anything to meet the budget. He rips up bicycle lanes, to move them a few streets over. He makes the TTC an essential service, which is only going to be more expensive going forward during the next contract negotiation. I guess his privatization of garbage is.. okay?

You know he's a joke when he ends up being the only councillor on the NO side of many votes. When we constantly have 38-1 votes at council with Rob Ford being the only one against, something is wrong. At least his brother and Doug Holyday, some of the most conservative councillors have an idea about building a city and can actually articulate an argument.

The only people that should be supporting him at this point are people from the suburbs way out in Etobicoke and Scarborough that somehow believe they are subsidizing the much larger population of downtown, while being ignored. Of course, these people are the people that treat politics of their city like a rooting for a sports teams and they're not thinking of how their mayor / councillor is actually building toward a better city.

Anyway, this is a long rant, but I just wanted to say; Even without his personal blunders and bigoted quotes, he's terrible at his job.
 
Stumpokapow said:
This is a misleading assessment of the situation. Based on their reports, they do have concrete evidence--their experience of researching and personally watching the tape. It is not that they do not have concrete evidence, it's that you are not able to verify that evidence to your satisfaction.

This is not a state of confusion, this is either factually true or a massive and deliberate campaign of lies made up whole cloth to smear the mayor. There's no in-between. It's not second-hand reporting. It's not something getting lost in the chain of communication. It's not iffy. They are unambiguous about what they researched, what they saw, and how they saw it. That's as concrete as it gets.

If the tape doesn't exist, if they made it all up, by all means, what you're saying is correct (and everyone involved needs to be sued into oblivion). But if the tape does exist and everything they say appears on it is true, then the fact that the tape is not public should not prohibit them from speaking about it. Wouldn't you agree? It's not Schroedinger's cat.
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No, I think the focus should be on letting the public see the video before anything else. Gawker and The Star have already generated a lot of web traffic and sold newspapers. They have too many easy exit strategies at this point, should the video fail to appear or be proven fake.

Kinitari said:
It doesn't fix it, of course - fixing something like this isn't really possible. But whether or not they fixed their mistake isn't what's of value - but the fact that they quickly acknowledge it, apologize and promise to make efforts to be more conscious of these sorts of things in the future. When I was having the Somali conversation of you, I think I asked you to do the exact same things.

Of course. Any group. Sincerely. I'm not Somali myself or anything, so it's not because I was personally offended that I made those first comments.
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Ok, I can respect that.
 
Willectro said:
No, I think the focus should be on letting the public see the video before anything else. Gawker and The Star have already generated a lot of web traffic and sold newspapers. They have too many easy exit strategies at this point, should the video fail to appear or be proven fake.
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Please elabourate on these "exit strategies."


And please explain why any paper would risk their credibility on a video like that if it were possibly fake.
 
Sapiens said:
Please elabourate on these "exit strategies."


And please explain why any paper would risk their credibility on a video like that if it were possibly fake.
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UPDATE-- MAY 27, 2013, 9:46 AM EASTERN EDT: We have had no further contact with the people we believe to have custody of this video since the last update.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: PLEASE GO HERE AND READ BEFORE YOU CONSIDER DONATING. Our confidence that we can consummate this transaction has diminished.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rob-ford-crackstarter
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Also, they viewed the video on a cell phone, which would make it difficult to see any of the details.
 
iphones have HD cameras do they not? it's not like they used a blackberry curve


Nearly at 198k, this is going to reach its goal very soon
 
Willectro said:
Also, they viewed the video on a cell phone, which would make it difficult to see any of the details.
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They said the video was crystal clear and that after viewing it three times there was no doubt in their mind that it was real.

They held it right up to their face and were able to pause it multiple times.

Didn't you read the article?

Also, quoted text is not an exit strategy. You promised exit strategies...
 
Sapiens said:
They said the video was crystal clear and that after viewing it three times there was no doubt in their mind that it was real.

They held it right up to their face and were able to pause it multiple times.

Didn't you read the article?
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We can debate that all day. Did you read my first point? Seem to be ignoring that though. The Star/Gawker can now say that they have lost contact and they tried their best. Seems like a great out to me.
 
Willectro said:
We can debate that all day. Did you read my first point? Seem to be ignoring that though. The Star/Gawker can now say that they have lost contact and they tried their best. Seems like a great out to me.
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You never appreciated my point though; why would The Star, who has never been wrong on anything they reported on the Fords, risk their reputation on a video they did not feel was real?


Willectro said:
Was it stated anywhere which model of iPhone? Because the video on the earlier models severely differs from that of the newer models.
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The Star's article stated that the video was clear. They watched it three times and paused on multiple occasions.

The Star has never been wrong on Ford.
 
Sapiens said:
You never appreciated my point though; why would The Star, who has never been wrong on anything they reported on the Fords, risk their reputation on a video they did not feel was real?

The Star's article stated that the video was clear. They watched it three times and paused on multiple occasions.

The Star has never been wrong on Ford.
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Because they have an easy exit if the video doesn't surface, as I said before.
 
Willectro said:
Because they have an easy exit if the video doesn't surface, as I said before.
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Will you be giving the Star kudos if the video does surface? The way you frame it, they're taking a huge chance on their reputation because the video might very well never be released.
 
EvilMario said:
Will you be giving the Star kudos if the video does surface? The way you frame it, they're taking a huge chance on their reputation because the video might very well never be released.
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Lol. Of course he won't.

Edit: I'll take the same position on willectro admitting he was wrong, as he does on the video. I'll believe it when I see it.
 
EvilMario said:
Will you be giving the Star kudos if the video does surface? The way you frame it, they're taking a huge chance on their reputation because the video might very well never be released.
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Yes, if it does come out, I will admit I was wrong about The Star and Gawker. I won't pretend it didn't happen like the Conflict of Interest fiasco.
 
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