Crackstarter - Gawker crowdfunding the Rob Ford crack tape: good or evil?

also i mean regardless of how much we'd like the tape, ford seems pretty well hosed at this point?

Yeah, I'm missing where Gawker needed a slew of reporters on the beat in Etobicoke because of their exhaustive Torontan focus.

Nothing but reporting on TTC from our own max.

Gawker can be expected to fuck up - because, it's Gawker and yes - why would they know how to handle a Toronto story sensitively - my point was more that the Star needs better connections around the city so sources don't take their stories to Gawker who will fuck them up.

And sure, the way it broke is a shitshow and maybe it was always going to be a shitshow given the sources... what I'm really talking about is the reporting since the story broke. Papers have been great on inside the Mayor's office action - important stuff - not so great on trying to break the story from the street

we need a Charlie LeDuff (though I think he might be off the rails himself)

mission statement of the last season of the wire is some score settling tedium but it does a good job of showing how cutbacks and death of newspapers has just completely decimated newspapers ability to know what's actually going on in the communities they serve. not enough boots on the ground and the ones they have don't have the experience and background to perform the task yet.

im bet u 100$ the video will be on the internet in under a week

i'll take that bet

tuesday, june 4th, 10:04 pm mountain time, at least 45 seconds of the video available online

There was a fake 2 second one floated today

dylan gonna lose

lol dylannn jumping in

i have a copy of the video in my hand right now

Gross.

I think if Gawker hadn't fucked it up - by calling CNN Canada who called the mayor's office

gawker didnt fuck up; cnn fucked up

the Star reporters could have negotiated a more reasonable price or found a way to verify it without buying the tape

the tape has been "verified." it is a tape of rob ford smoking crack. verification is no longer the issue.

The saddest thing is the Fords are right that the media is a bunch of downtown elitists who are out of touch with much of the city - and this whole saga proves it.

I can't tell if you're being serious.

I am being serious.

There are four daily papers based in Toronto. There was a tape floating around of the mayor smoking crack for weeks and none of them got it. The holders of the tape went to Gawker weeks after contacting the Star - and now, it turns out, they also contacted The Sun who blew them off without checking it out.

Two Star reporters and a Gawker editor claiming to have seen it may be enough for you, me, and Max - but that's not "verified" enough to convince a lot of people, or to force Ford to admit wrong-doing. Part of the problem is everyone assuming the reporters' word is enough, and not doing the hard reporting.

Was Rob Ford ever seen around the apartment complex at 320 Dixon Road? Thousands of residents there, did anyone ever see him? Was he ever seen on the 17th floor? Was David Price ever seen there? Is there security camera video that might show either one of them there? Who was shot in the leg on the 17th floor at 4:20 am on May 21? Who shot him? Was Anthony Smith involved in the crack trade or not? What was his relationship to Ford? He has no friends or relatives who will talk to reporters? Where is Muhammad Khattak, who was injured in the Anthony Smith shooting? The sources of the tape have "gone underground" - does anyone in the neighbourhood know who they are, and where they are now? Did a bunch of crack dealers have a tape of the mayor smoking crack and really not show it to anyone who might talk now? What do the cops know?

Where's the reporting from on the ground in Rexdale and from police sources?

If they're doing all your reporting from inside city hall, focusing entirely on the people in power - I think it's fair to say they're elitist and out of touch.

Part of the problem is everyone assuming the reporters' word is enough, and not doing the hard reporting.

...

That sentence seems to be saying something different from what you think it is saying, unless you do actually mean that we should all be knocking on doors in Toronto and interviewing residents about Rob Ford.

so - that they report on the mayor? that makes them elitist?

sorry for my bad syntax, I'm talking about reporters knocking on doors not everyone in Toronto.

In an ideal world, 2 reporters and an editor of gawker reporting on having seen the tape would have been enough for Ford to admit it and leave office. This has not been the case. They need to prove it, not wait for the tape to surface or Ford to cop to it without proof. There's no guarantee of the former, and the latter is unlikely.

yes, it's elitist to assume the Toronto Star's word is enough to convince the city, unfortunately. There's nothing wrong with reporting on the mayor and his powerful allies and enemies, but this story didn't happen IN city hall so there's more reporting to do, and I'm not seeing it.

I'm sure all the Rexdale residents are just lining up to be interviewed in a takedown of the mayor/drug trade with the promise of going back to their apartments at the end of the day!

right, that's why it's hard reporting to do.

lol okay I read the article "from the neighborhood" and it contains a quote from an unnamed source that says “We always worry here,” and a quote from a named source that says of the night of the most recent shooting that might be tied to someone connected to the video, "It was scary."

Clearly we need more reporting like this, I mean the shades of meaning we have added to the story with these vital contributions.

Looking forward to The Daily Brio -- "News with Sass! Doors Knocked!"

I mean, did it occur to you that someone may have tried talking to these people, got those same quotes, and thought "this isn't actually a story" and tossed it?

seriously, guys?

The mother of the kid who was in the picture (injured, not killed) was interviewed in Metro yesterday fwiw

while i had been thinking what you had - that the Star didn't *seem* to be talking to people around that neighbourhood. I don't really take it of some sign of any sort of larger problem. they also didn't want to 1- pay for a video due to ethical standards and 2- run with the story when they didn't have the evidence. you're aware of that right? that gawker broke the story and forced the Star's hand, as they were the only media outlet that could verify gawker's claims with what they had at least seen?

you're also forgetting that the Globe - another "downtown" "elitist" monster - HAD talked to all sort of good ol salt of the earth folks around Etobicoke to build their story on Doug.

I would also like for you to expand some more on what an "elitist" is to you exactly. I find that term to be nothing more than a brainless drive-by smear used by conservatives to smear people in cities, or liberals, that they don't agree with. Am I an elitist? I live downtown. Should my opinions be cast aside because I have the gaul to live in the hoity-toity neighbourhood of Parkdale? Am I also a "laté sipper"? Or a "champaign socialist"?

its okay to be an elitist as long as you knock on some doors and do old school reporting

http://www.mikeeiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/old-school-reporter.jpg

isn't is spelled "gall"? </elitistANDpedantic>

serious newspaper reporters could have knocked on doors in etobicoke trying to raise $200,000

ha ha!

i actually like to hang out with elitist from southern france. i have lots of Gauls i chill with.

If reporters had pre-existing relations with sources in the neighborhood, then they would have been more likely to get a better response, no? It's like reporting everywhere, you build up a network and keep a finger on the pulse. Noone does that in poor neighborhoods anymore, and the reporting in this case is a result. And I know this because I've seen The Wire. Seriously, they didn't even know who Prop Joe was!

nobody does this in any neighborhoods because its 2013

So who will be first on the air with "The Fords"? David Simon, David Chase or David Milch?

(Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, obviously.)

Well, Aaron Sorkin sort of. They break the story because someone in the room knew that murdered guy from somewhere.

But most of the focus is on how wrong it is to call newspeople 'maggots', since they are doing a really important job and are actually really nice people.

Guys this is Patch.com's job now.

what I learned from the Wire is that reporters just make up stories to win awards. Especially elitist white reporters. That and you evacuate a building, not the people in it. Unless that's, like, your thing.

I think The Star and The Globe are elitist only in the sense that they are much more comfortable with, much more interested in, and much better at reporting on the city's elites. I think Rob and Doug Ford know this - and they leverage it and spin it and shape it to their advantage, by painting themselves as the little guys sticking it to the man.

Kind of surprised to hear some people thinking knocking on doors and old school reporting is such a punchline or outdated idea. Did the list of questions I posted earlier seem unreasonable or irrelevant? I'm not being snarky or sarcastic at all here - just curious. I actually think we'll see more stories on what exactly went down with Price possibly trying to get the tape in the next few days.

the Globe and Mail (which, smugly, has "globe" in the name) – has a more international focus. If they were busying themselves with the non-elitists of Etobicoke, they would be the "Rexdale and Mail" or the "Etobicoke Town Crier" or something.

The Toronto Star, conversely, is CONSTANTLY running pieces on the plights of the regular people of Toronto. Articles I usually, as a loathsome elitist, skip. They have one regular column "the fixer", for example (http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer.html) - where they help out citizens who are encountering difficulty navigating the elitist bureaucracy of city hall. I'm not aware of the Sun helping out anyone who isn't connected in conservative circles (Rob Ford and Tim Hudak being two of their favourites) (maybe not Ford so much now that the winds have changed direction tho).

I don't think knocking on doors/old school reporting is a punchline in and of itself. I do think that when you ignore one instance of extensive door-knocking that resulted in the story about the Ford family's alleged history of drug dealing as part of the larger context around this scandal and hold up as an example to follow a complete and total non-story that seems to only exist in order to make a grab for page views from people looking for more information about this tape, you are setting yourself up to be clowned. I also think that the lack of stories answering the questions you posed does not automatically mean no one is trying to answer them.

OK I see where you're coming from - first, I didn't mean to hold up the Sun non-story as an example of anything but "This is the first time I've seen any quotes from inside this building or around, and we're weeks into the story."

The Doug Ford story: a) the Globe sat on it for 18 months. b) they didn't get all that much.

Agree that people are probably trying to answer the questions I posed - but I think it's fair to point out there hasn't been much published reporting on those angles by now. I hope

I hope we will see more on those angles, it does seem to me like the natural place to dig now.

maybe toronto reporters just suck at their jobs

like, they're trying really hard, they're just bad

there probably aren't enough of them. most ppl who want to earn a living are not going into journalism in 2013.

everything about this story is so amazing as to stretch credulity. if someone told me that the mayor smokes crack, and allowed himself to be recorded doing it, i don't think i'd follow up either

diminished resources is definitely a fair point - but there are 4 dailies and 3 national broadcasters (as an elitist, I'm not counting Sun News Network) based in Toronto.