There isn’t much commentary I can add to the Rob Ford saga– many Toronto-based columnists are owning this topic.
This saga is one that every newsroom is fascinated with and no one can’t look away.
In our newsroom, I was the one who saw the news break on Twitter. I was covering social media for my colleague who didn’t show up– this was the only reason why I was watching Twitter while @Humber was broadcasting. As soon as I shouted out “CBC NEWS HAS TWEETED THAT ROB FORD HAS ADMITTED TO SMOKING CRACK COCAINE!” our newsroom fell deadly quiet for a minute, then turned into sheer panic. Some quick rewriting of a Canadian Press wire and we threw it into our line-up for our host. Afterwards, we were ripping clips and running whole new segments in our show.
As a team, we killed it on our noon show on Tuesday. Judy Charles, our professor, informed us that we would have to do another show at 6 pm (when our show is normally a rerun). Five of us stayed until the bitter end: Charlotte Anketell (reporter/writer), Justin Vasko (writer/news reader), Hugh Smith (reporter/host), myself (reporter/studio director/producer) and Judy (professor/everything else).
We managed to get some great interviews, but one that took a lot of time on the phone, even if it meant I accidentally dialed a lot of fax numbers was a City Councillor: James Pasternak, Ward 10 York Centre.
I expect that everyone in news will be keeping a close eye on this story, as it keeps changing. Ford is like the cat that keeps coming back.
Kateryna Barnes 