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The Toronto Star created a city-wide firestorm when its story about Rob Ford’s alleged drinking problem hit newsstands yesterday. The article, which relies on the testimony of several anonymous sources, elicited feverish and contradictory responses from a host of Toronto’s prominent people, including the Star’s editor-in-chief Michael Cooke (who calls it “airtight”) and Ford himself (who says it’s “just lies after lies and lies”). We take up the main points of contention below.
All stories relating to Rosie DiManno
Reaction Roundup: city hall insiders respond to allegations that Rob Ford has a drinking problem
Gawker Gotchas: the snarky site’s top six takedowns of Toronto journalists
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Do not ask Rosie DiManno about her weekend. On Saturday, the Internet took aim at one of the Toronto Star columnist’s recent pieces, and the scathing and hilarious critiques included one from the takedown specialists at Gawker, who awarded her the prize for “Worst Lede of All Time.” At least DiManno can take comfort that she’s not the first of Toronto’s writerly class to run afoul of the site. Below, we rounded up Gawker’s most angry screeds and memorable jabs at Toronto media.
Reaction roundup: Toronto Maple Leafs legend Mats Sundin is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame
(Image: Håkan Dahlström)
In his first year of eligibility, the beloved former captain of the Maple Leafs received the nod to join hockey’s most venerable ranks. Part of an inductee class of true talents, Mats Sundin enters the Hall of Fame alongside Joe Sakic, Adam Oates and Pavel Bure. Though his induction is somewhat overshadowed by the pedigree of his peers, Sundin’s career and the impression he left upon city he loved were both remarkable. For our part, we offer heartfelt congratulations to the big centre. Here’s what the rest of the Toronto sports media corps—and others—had to say.
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Rosie DiManno writes a really weird column begrudging Rob Ford’s weight loss
With the wall-to-wall coverage of TTC boss Gary Webster’s firing, you might have missed another story coming out of city hall yesterday: Rob Ford dropped another two pounds. The mayor’s dieting success attracted the attention of Toronto Star columnist—and frequent target of derision—Rosie DiManno, who resents that “weight is dropping off [Ford] like melting snow sliding off a roof.” DiManno shares details of her own effort to lose weight—poundage, she calls it—a struggle that’s involved depression, dieting and a diagnosis of exercise-induced asthma. Of course, we don’t hold DiManno’s honesty against her. We do, however, take issue with passages like this one: “[Men] down-size immediately by just swearing off potatoes or holding the line at one lunch-time martini. I glance covetously at a chocolate bar and can’t do up my zipper. While my arse goes sideways, my tunic tops creep south. I’m thinking…burqa.” Wait, a burqa? We thought she hated those. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
(Images: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star; scales, Brenda Clarke)
Another Toronto Star columnist tries out the whole civic government thing
Star columnists Joe Fiorito and Rosie DiManno
One more case like this and it’ll officially be a trend. First, Rosie DiManno took over the SIU’s investigation into the Toronto police’s role in Adam Nobody’s assault, and now it looks like Joe Fiorito (once upon a time the scourge of the TCHC) is taking a turn at playing mayor.
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SIU closes investigation into the Adam Nobody assault—again
Image: Jeff Denberg
The total number of police officers who will be charged in the beating of Adam Nobody at last summer’s G20 summit will, apparently, be one and only one. Yesterday, the Special Investigations Unit announced that it was closing the investigation into Nobody’s beating for the second time (the SIU reopened the case when Rosie DiManno decided to take over the investigation on the Toronto Star’s front page), after finding grounds to charge only a single officer—Babak Andalib-Goortani—with assault. In what’s becoming a familiar refrain, the SIU says it can’t identify any other officers that might have been involved in the Nobody incident.
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Another front-page treatment on the Star, another officer charged with G20 offenses
Unidentified police officers at the G20 summit last summer (Image: James Schwartz)
The Toronto Star continued to do the investigative work the Toronto police would prefer it didn’t, managing once more to splash its front page with a story about a cop accused of abuse at the G20 summit. And, once more, with the spotlight shining brightly on n allegedly misbehaving officer, charges were promptly laid. It’s pretty much a replay of the Babak Andalib-Goortani case, only this time the Star had someone other than Rosie Dimanno do the honours.
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Toronto’s five best and worst political moments of 2010
As 2010 winds down, we can’t help but think of what a crazy year it’s been in Toronto politics. The city has had the kind of election that will, quite frankly, be hard to describe to later generations. (“Well, Timmy, the mayor had forgotten about his drug possession charge because he was scared the reporters knew about his DUI.”) Even if we mostly strip out provincial and federal politics—no “Province of Toronto” talk or long-form census debacles—2010 was the year Hogtown’s politics went cuckoo for crazy puffs. So in the spirit of the holiday listicle, here are our choices for 2010’s five best and worst moments.
Things keep getting better for Toronto police—now they’ve lost Rosie DiManno
(Image: Karon Liu)
When he issued an apology last Friday, Bill Blair probably hoped that he’d put the matter of “Adam Nobody vs. Many Police Batons” to rest. It seems to have not happened that way. Instead of closing their re-opened investigation, the province’s SIU is putting out new calls for witnesses seen in the most famous video of Nobody’s arrest. Apparently, the SIU is going to give Nobody’s case a closer second look. (Our wish, granted!) Even more interestingly, the Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno has now run not one but two columns about how little she trusts Blair anymore.
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Reaction Roundup: the hockey world pays tribute to former Leafs coach Pat Burns
After succumbing to cancer more than a week ago, Pat Burns, the legendary hockey coach of over 1,000 games and of the less-legendary Maple Leafs from 1992 to 1996, is being laid to rest in Montreal today. Having coached in Montreal, Boston and New Jersey, as well as Toronto, there are plenty of people memorializing him. Here, a small sample of tributes.
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How many high-rise fires could Toronto handle?
As everyone surely knows by now, there was a massive high-rise fire in St. James Town last Friday, and now almost 2,000 people have been left effectively homeless as inspectors try to determine if the building is even safe enough for people to go in and fetch some personal belongings—like a change of clothes or, in at least one case, a wallet. The fire has left the city’s services in chaos, as apparently nobody had planned for this kind of thing, despite the prominence of high-rise condo towers in the city’s housing boom.
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Reaction roundup: Michael Bryant is tarnished but still golden, according to Toronto’s newspapers
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The end-game of Michael Bryant‘s legal troubles may not be the only story in town, but it is certainly dominating the front pages today, thanks in no small part to photos showing Darcy Allan Sheppard confronting other drivers in situations similar to Bryant’s terrible night last fall. Toronto’s big dailies all had a kick at the Bryant can this morning, publishing editorials and commentary that dealt with questions of justice, fairness and, of course, the social schisms that the Bryant affair has laid bare in Toronto. Here, a quick survey of the mediascape.
Anne Burrell sued for discrimination, picking the best rum, the Annex gets even more 905-friendly
• Although Amy Adams portrays her in Julie and Julia as a cute cubicle dweller wanting to escape, the real-life Julie Powell reveals in her new memoir, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, that adultery and cybersex with strangers were part of the fallout of her fame. Wanting to escape the “pedestal” she was “undeservedly” placed on after her debut book got her a lucrative movie deal and a fan following, Powell followed in the footsteps of other great literati who tasted fame too young: she lived self-destructively and burned the people closest to her, then shoved aside the guilt and grasped for fame again by writing a book about her misadventures. [Globe and Mail]
• A lawsuit against spiky-haired Food Network star Anne Burrell alleges that, in addition to making mouth-watering meatball sandwiches in her West Village restaurant, Centro Vinoteca, Burrell relentlessly ridiculed her female front-of-house staffers. Burell allegedly told one bartender that she was a “ho” with “saggy boobs,” and another waitress that she “must be tired today from fucking all night.” The suit also claims that any employee who complained was dismissed. [Gothamist]
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Whole Foods gets some competition, Rosie DiManno’s Halloween hijinks, rethinking turkey dinners
Fowl fun: Daniel Boulud, Wylie Dufresne and David Shea put together turkey dinners for New York magazine (Photo by Doug Shick)
• New York challenges three chefs to create a Thanksgiving meal using such classic ingredients as turkey, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin and oysters. It’s a bit late for the Canadian version of the holiday, but it does give us plenty of time to prepare for Christmas dinner. [New York]
• After taking her niece and nephew trick-or-treating on the Bridle Path this weekend, Rosie DiManno concludes that the residents are “pikers and meanies, folks who’d begrudge a youngster a licorice swirl.” Most homes, in fact, weren’t handing out sweets at all, and one of the children declared it the “worst Halloween ever.” [Toronto Star]
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