The South Bayview Bulldog

The Ontario Press Council hearing has wrapped up its hearings in which the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail defended themselves against complaints from the public that they have been unethical in their coverage of Mayor Ford and his brother, Doug Ford. The OPC efforts were divided into two inquiries, morning and afternoon with the Star first and the Globe after lunch. The Star responded to the concerns with reporter Kevin Donovan saying he and his colleague Robyn Doolittle sincerely believed that the video they saw was real. The Globe defended its use of anonymous sources for an investigative piece by Greg McArthur and Shannon Kari that looked into Mayor Rob Ford’s family’s alleged drug dealings. The council’s decision is always subject to the writing of its conclusions released at a later date.

The Toronto Star is being asked to answer for stories about Mayor Ford and his brother Doug at a hearing of the Ontario Press Council today. Rolling tweets link below suggests it is well underway. The council will hear two complaints, one about the Star’s “crack video” story and one on the Globe and Mail’s anonymous sources-flashback to the high school days of Doug Ford. The Globe’s hearing will begin at 1 p.m. The independent press council says the two complaints will stand in for the dozens filed against the newspapers over their coverage of the Fords. At issue, the council says, is whether the newspapers “engaged in irresponsible, unethical investigative reporting.” Rolling Tweets 

The Sun newspaper inspires this modest demurer to the non-stop media rave about the Toronto Film Festival. The Sun offers its own love-hate check list and it is worth a read. For our part, it is a gratifying thing to know that the city is the focus of so much of the world’s attention and, to be frank, the spending of a lot of money. In many ways the TIFF is a kind of peek-a-boo smorgasbord. You have to hope that you find the things you like. Otherwise, news coverage is frequently just four or five days of wall-to-wall noise. Star-gazing? Maybe, but it has always been true that most people are not interested in standing on a street hoping to see a film star. Those who possess them know in their brains that this is true. Our final flick-off is shared by the Sun. In the end, TIFF is not a public event. Oh sure, there are films to be seen even though the terms on which tickets are sold seem abusive. No. TIFF is an convention of people who write, finance, produce, direct and star in Hollywood movies. Important work. To attend TIFF as a simple outsider however is like trying to crash the G20. They don’t know you.  Toronto Sun

Lorna Krawchuk has written to remind us of the 11th Annual Women’s Dinner at St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, 1399 Bayview Ave. This is the one where the men of the parish serve dinner and are the wine stewards. They also clean up. It sounds like a nice evening and the tickets are very reasonable at $20 a person. This event will be held Friday, October 23,  2013. Come at 6.30 for dinner at 7.15 p.m. Tickets are available at the church office (416) 485-0329

Marcus Gee writes in the Globe and Mail today (Saturday,September 7, 2013)  that Beijing  has managed to build as many as a dozen subway lines in the last 25 years whereas Toronto hasn’t added much if any capacity to its underground service  This is, as you will gather, a criticism of everything  transit in Toronto. Mr. Gee is a perceptive man and is seldom wrong in his commentary on the state of the municipality. His dismay at the performance of the present  transportation minister is fully understandable. Mr Murray seems to be trying to build a subway to Scarborough by having a temper tantrum a day. Our quibble with Mr. Gee is his comparison of Toronto and Beijing.  It’s a common device when we want to complain about Canadian underachievement.  The Bulldog would submit that China’s subways have been built  as much for reasons of nation-building and international status as for commuter convenience. Happily, Chinese subways aren’t finished up with laughable Greek columns like those in Stalinist Moscow and St. Petersburg.  But there’s a similar kind of nationalism at work. In a country with woeful public health, spotty pensions and a bumper crop of orphans, subways may or may not seem to have been a sensible first priority. Of course it is also quite cheap to build anything in China for all the reasons that every factory owner knows. It’s true, we have been neglectful of heavy transit in Toronto but for many years there has been little public outcry about that.  Even today transit is not  the thing that inspires lawn signs in Leaside, or perhaps even Scarborough.  The depth of our  dark night of transit tragedy occurred during the mayoralty of Mr. Miller and his youthful keeper of  the streetcars, Mr. Giambone. The construction of the St.Clair right-of way was an insanity by any way of measuring it and a shameful crushing of the will of the people of that street. 

There’s an enjoyable profile of the kitchen life of Peter and Lara Neal (Neal Brothers Foods) and how they built it in their renovated home on Rykert Crescent.  It’s published today in the Globe and Mail (may require subscription)