Doug Ford says Toronto Star Daniel Dale’s lawsuit is attempt to sell newspapers
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s brother, councillor Doug Ford, dismissed Daniel Dale’s libel notice as an attempt to sell newspapers. Meanwhile, Michael Cooke, the Star’s editor-in-chief, said Dale will remain as city hall acting bureau chief while the legal proceedings continue.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s brother, councillor Doug Ford, dismissed Daniel Dale’s libel notice as an attempt to sell newspapers.
“The Toronto Star is hurting, they want to sell newspapers, and it’s a shame they’re going down this avenue,” The Globe and Mail reported Doug Ford saying in a scrum. “It’s a shame—a shame—that they’re using Daniel Dale as a pawn here.”
Dale has served a libel notice to the mayor and Vision TV after Rob Ford implied in an interview with former media baron Conrad Black that the reporter was pedophile, for having taking pictures of the mayor’s children, while the reporter says he was legally on city property next door doing research on a Ford-related story in May 2012.
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Zoomer Media, which owns Vision TV, said in a statement that “As there is now the threat of legal action, ZoomerMedia will not be making a statement until such time as we can consult with our attorneys to consider the allegations and determine next steps.”
Dale now has three months to file his statement of claim, according to an interview given by his lawyer on CBC’s Power and Politics. The Star will foot the cost of his legal fees.
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Many journalists, including Power and Politics host Evan Solomon, questioned how Dale could continue to cover city hall effectively and objectively as city hall bureau chief while the legal proceedings are underway.
Cooke, the Star’s editor-in-chief, responded that Dale has been fairly covering the beat since the incident happened in 2012.
“His reporting in that past year or so has been unassailable and I have no reason to believe that that would change,” he said. “So there was no reason for the Star to take Daniel off that beat. There’s no reason for Daniel to suffer some kind of punitive measure because of the pedophile smear coming from Rob Ford.”
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Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.