RobFord.Ca Redirected to Toronto Star Website
On December 6, 2011, RobFord.ca was redirected to the Toronto Star website.
For a background of the dispute between Mayor Rob Ford and the Toronto Star see below or here and here.
John Honderich
Chair of Torstar Corp.
Rob Ford
Mayor of Toronto
Honderich: If our local democracy is to flourish, it is essential Torontonians be well informed and conversant on all local issues.
Ford: I have no respect for the Toronto Star whatsoever. If people want to read a paper, pick up the Globe, Post or Sun. That’s what I encourage people to do.
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Honderich: We have the chief magistrate of the city . . . using the tool of blackout to prevent the city’s largest newspaper from receiving notification of public events, briefings or announcements from his office.
Ford: This is so ridiculous. We might have sent out five press releases. And at City Hall there’s a press gallery. You send only one press release, everybody gets it. It’s like one big family.
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Honderich: Mayor Ford has no obligation to speak to or be interviewed by the Star. That is entirely his choice.
Ford: The bottom line is, I won’t give them an interview. I do not want to talk to them. If they want to trash me, and do whatever they continue to do, that’s up to them, that’s their prerogative.
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Honderich: The ban has been in place ever since Ford won the mayoral race more than a year ago. It stems from Ford’s rage over a piece the Star ran during the campaign about his conduct as a football coach.
Ford: Until you apologize for what you wrote I’m not talking to you. And let’s leave it at that.
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Honderich: Candidate Ford was furious and filed an immediate notice of libel, which is entirely and appropriately his prerogative. But he never followed up, as required, and his suit has now lapsed.
Ford: You don’t make up stories that are not true about me coaching football and ever since that — and everybody knows it’s not true.
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Honderich: The Ford freeze recently went a step further. The mayor’s staff was holding a briefing on arts funding and other members of the City Hall press gallery were told about it privately. In this case, they were also specifically asked not to tell the Star about it.
Ford: I’ll give you an example. We invited everyone. My press secretary, Adrienne Batra, is leaving us today, it’s her last day, so we had a big party for her two nights ago, and we invited every single media outlet, every councillor — this is the only media outlet that didn’t show up.
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Honderich: This conduct cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged. The issue is far too important.
Ford: It’s not even worth talking about.
CP24 gives the background,
The site was last used when Ford was a city councillor in 2010. The domain name has since been taken over someone else, unknown to the Ford camp.
