Today I am angry! I am pissed! Why?
Because newspaper editors think Torontonians need their opinions.
What Torontonians NEED are FACTS.
Let Torontians Decide who to vote for after giving them the Facts.
But wait over the last 10 months the media has not done that so why would they start now. When I arrived back in the city of my birth after 2 years away I followed the media coverage of the campaign and from what I saw it looked liked there were only 5 candidates running after all they never talked about any one else. Their coverage has been biased since day 1.
How many people even know that as of today’s date there remain 38 candidates for mayor? And do you know who is running in your Ward for councillor or trustee? Do you know what they stand for? What their records are like? What they would do?
I didn’t. I kept reading and watching and thought I could find out through typical media sources. Boy was this girl wrong. The media coverage given the candidates sucked! The debates were not even an exchange of ideas they were short sound bites with nothing in the background. There was no platform for discussion and vision. I got to here 5 debates. At each the candidates it seemed gave “canned answers until this last one at Oakwood Collegiate and that was just well how can I put it a “Who can yell the loudest contest?”
I had to go searching on my own to really read, know and understand the platforms of those running.
The Media did this city a disservice by NOT highlighting at least the top 10 candidates for mayor. They call those outside the top 5 “fringe” as if that makes them men without ideas, without platforms, without merit. Several under the top have put forward platforms and ideas that have found their way into the mainstream media after their ideas were taken by one of the top 5. Sarah Thompson’s bike plan mirrored Himy Syed’s “bike city”. Hers was released after his was already online. George Smitherman started talking about neighbourhood councils an idea first put forward again by Himy Syed in his run for council in 2006, and has been on his website since I first visited it early in the campaign. Neither Thompson or Smitherman ever mentioned where they got the ideas..hm, let me guess?? Nor was this even picked up on by the media.
Perhaps if one paper had bothered to do a weekend spread on all the candidates and there policies we would have voters ready to make informed choices, but we do not. As I walked out of the debate at Oakwood collegiate on Thursday evening many were still undecided. I heard the conversations in the hallway. I saw the people shaking their heads and wondering who they would vote for. They came because they wanted to hear an exchange of ideas, an exchange of vision but that was not delivered.
The Media has done this city a disservice this election. The Star today stated they would be TELLING us who they chose as the week progresses after endorsing Smitherman. A paper should NOT be endorsing a candidate: their job is to deliver news and inform not make choices. The men of the backrooms have decided who you would hear this election. They have chosen who to include and who to exclude. I hate that the Media have not done their job through out and in the final days have decided that they will declare the best choices that is wrong.
That is why I am an angry mom. I expected more from my media sources and they failed miserably. I will never again subscribe to the Toronto Star or Toronto Sun. Never. They have now become what I am a blogger. Not a news source.
