Amateur and professional city hall pundits have been challenged this week to come up with new expressions for descriptors like sideshow, clusterfuck and circus. But these don’t convey a sense of what the scene at city hall is actually like. I won’t recount or comment on the allegations surrounding our mayor because it’s been done, but during this amazing and amusing ordeal-that-just-won’t-quit, the climate of city hall has heated up, even if the circumstances that brought it about are most regrettable.
When I first started writing about city hall, it dawned on me that I ought to step foot in the place. I had never been. In these early days, I had the crazy idea that writers on this beat ought to remain in whatever meeting was going on, that meetings were the true subjects of scrutiny.
In Tuesday’s Executive Committee meeting, Mayor Ford left his seat briefly to chat with a person five feet beside him, and, in the belief he was exiting the room, the media burst out of their seats like Pavlov’s dogs — cameras at the ready, mouths foaming. Shortly after this false alarm, the mayor announced he had to talk to some school kids outside. How quaint! Again, upon standing, the media descended on him with such a violent speed that the entire room laughed. I did too. Of course, I learned many meetings ago that these gatherings, Tuesday’s especially, are just a pretext to ask key figures questions that have nothing to do with the day’s proposed agendas. Still, seeing media mobilize this quickly was shocking. Sure, Ford’s election might have awoken a politically-sleepy city to get out of bed, but this last month has lit a fire under our asses to get out of the house and take to the streets. Knowing the mayor wasn’t going to respond to questions or pose for my camera, I went to watch the media watching him. As he stepped outside, a multi-rowed horseshoe of cameras and journalists — including French and Chinese language news channels — instantly surrounded Ford. (Let’s take a second, though, applaud the cameramen for dodging those irregularly placed support pillars at city hall.)
But the mayor is shifty. After two years (and many more watching football), Ford knows a thing or two about dodging people. The cameraman’s main objective is to make sure the mayor is in focus as he flees, like a game of film tag. He works in tandem with his counterparts (opponents?), who must be captured on film shouting some pertinent question at Ford in order to report later on precisely how it is ignored. This is accountability, baby! And even if all the footage is nearly identical, lenses separated by inches, it requires not two but twenty cameras.
I do not exaggerate when I say the mayor fled. Yesterday, after Ford unexpectedly escaped down a hallway, I heard a frustrated reporter proclaim, “He ninja-ed me!” Undeterred, the cameras set up to catch the mayor on his way back. They remained in position until someone arrived saying the mayor escaped through a different door and had already returned to the meeting. David Price, the Ford staffer who reportedly told former chief of staff Mark Towhey the precise address where the alleged video is being held, was just outside city hall when he saw Jamie Strashin of the CBC and literally ran away across the street. No wonder I heard a reporter on a headset tactically co-ordinating where to station their cameras in what sounded like army code. Yes, this is what we’re doing now: playing tag and hide-and-seek.
But I was confused when, back in the meeting, I saw the media horde rush out once more even though the mayor remained seated. It seemed some sweet, gentle mothers wearing colourful party hats were trying to deliver a vanilla birthday cake to the mayor, who turned 44. The cake read, “Happy birthday Rob, please resign.” The frantic media horseshoe formed around the women, but it was congenial. And in contrast to our mayor, the women patiently fielded questions until the reporters were satisfied; several times spelling out their names, their purpose, and that they weren’t affiliated with anyone or anything. The fact that these women will talk freely, but our city’s highest elected official remains mostly mute is telling. It’s actually scandalous that we tolerate aversion from those most responsible to us. For perspective: it was considered a shocking breach of duty — and a letdown to the millions who count on him — when Leaf sniper Phil Kessel declined to speak to media before game one of our tragic playoff series against Boston.
It’s not shocking that the mayor’s handlers retreated to his office with all this unwanted attention. CTV has a live feed going on here of these non-events. While sheltered inside, the mass of cameras becomes two storeys high. As the mayor’s office door opens partially to let someone in or out, granting a brief and slight view of inside, cameras flash and speculation is rampant: “It looks like they’re eating a cake, a football cake. Did anyone see that?” These findings prompt a slew tweets so similar they read like plagiarism when seen together. People read them all and retweet their favourites. It’s all clogging the information drain, no room to breathe.
I’m having too much fun poking at reporters in jest. At times the scale of the media throng gives rise to some absurdity and it’s amusing. But reporters here serve a crucial function very well, and I reject claims that the media spectacle is a witch hunt. Ultimately, our mayor is the ringmaster of the circus he so desperately wanted to be at the centre of, in a show where he doesn’t control the acts. And the media will not stop watching.
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Jeff Halperin is a Toronto-based writer. You can follow him on Twitter @JDhalperin.
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