Mayor Rob Ford. COURTESY CITY OF TORONTO.
By Ryan Saundercook
In their latest public relations controversy, Rob and Doug Ford referred to the media as “sucky little kids” and said TTC subway customers “don’t care who’s driving the train,” on their Sunday talk radio show.
During their weekly two-hour program on Newstalk 1010 titled “The City,” the Ford brothers discussed their weekend trip to Chicago, but soon switched gears to the issue of contracting out TTC bus cleaning services, and their media coverage.
Listen to the Sep. 23 newscast here.
“Let me tell you this, when you go back at the media, they’re like a bunch of sucky kids. They whine and cry and moan, they sensationalize and they lie through their teeth,” said Doug Ford.
“They’re pathological liars, that’s what drives me crazy,” added Rob Ford. “Let me tell you: we talk about an hour on Chicago and now these guys come out and put advertising on about the expenses.”
The advertisement being referred to was in fact a Newstalk 1010 news update.
Ford’s generalization of the media has some questioning how much he knows about the issues being discussed.
“As a teacher, when somebody makes a generalization I always ask them to be more specific. And my experience is that they often don’t have anything to back up their wild claims,” Kalene Morgan, program co-ordinator for Humber’s public relations program, told Humber News. “It’s easy to make a generalization, it’s much harder to back it up. I think this is more of him just talking to hear his own voice.”
Morgan said that Ford’s comments distract media from important issues like Ford’s court case in which he is defending against conflict of interest claims.
“I personally would never recommend a client of mine try to gain publicity this way, but Mayor Ford seems to be marching to his own drummer and doing what he wants to do,’ said Morgan. “He doesn’t seem to care about what other people think of him.”
A Toronto Star article brought attention to the numerous examples of Ford making apparently erroneous statements during the interview, including remarks concerning his use of a city car and city staff for his high school football program.