Corrections in Royson James’ article

22 comments

1. I automatically skip all Roysun’s columns since a couple of years ago, when he found his narrow-minded niche. Do they expect him to apologise now?

   He wrote the council should be hanged one by one last year, he didn’t apologise then.

   The Star’s numbers are down, why give it and Roysun more attention?

2. Nice to see that the Star’s biased, make it up as they go along reporting, not to mention Royson’s oh-I-wish-Mel-were-still-Mayor diatribes finally ran aground.

   A shame they are not forced to print corrections of all of the misinformation or the slanted headlines/content intended to make Miller look bad. Once upon a time, the Star fancied itself a “Liberal” newspaper with a voice of the common folk.

   Now they are playing to the burbs where they hope to get circulation by slagging downtowners and “their” mayor.

   The local media generally have been far too anti-Miller to be called anything near “balanced”. At least Royson’s pieces are “opinion”, but too much bias shows up regularly elsewhere.

3. Reading the comments section at the Star is like watching Fox News, a bunch of whining self absorbed ignorant people. No wonder Royson goes uncorrected. I wish he had something new to say other than “Miller is bad”. For the record Mel was horrible and did nothing for 8 years, at least Miller is trying to change things. Poor old Star where have you gone ?

   (And Roysons cousin Gee is now at the Globe.)

4. One other thought….Royson reminds me of Lubor Zink the Sun columnist who saw every thing as a secret communist plot even the fall of the Berlin Wall. They quietly put him out to pasture where he continued to seek pinkos.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubor_J._Zink

5. Nitpicking over the exact mechanics of how someone gets on the executive committee is disingenuous at best – face the truth, everyone on it is hand picked by the Mayor – by Miller. [Look at what happened to Ashton after he voted against the Land Transfer tax – poof, removed and replaced with someone more compliant.]

   This correction misses the point – namely that the updated city of toronto act did give the city ‘new broad powers’ to pass bylaws over a wide range of governance issues. (see http://www.toronto.ca/mayor_miller/summaryact.htm)

   Many Torontonians believe that Mayor Miller has failed to exercise those powers in a way that shows leadership and betters Toronto. He’s had his shot. The hope we all felt when he was first elected has soured and turned to anger. The only thing that will keep Miller in his seat is the lack of a credible opposing candidate. Ford? Minnan-Wong? We’ve got to do better.

6. Are you sure that everything stated in Royson’s column is incorrect. Take item #4. Just exactly how does these folks get appointed. They may be approved by Council; but doesn’t the recommendations go through the handpicked members of the Striking Committee.

   Please do NOT rely upon PRESS RELEASES as FACT. Any sensible journalist should know that and SPACING is as sloppy as the journalism being criticised for doing this.

7. Holy hyperbola Steve! Don’t worry, the MDL (Miller Defense League), stands at the ready to defend his blondness and all things streetcarish.

8. Grace: the corporate communications of City Hall is not politicized. A press release like this would come from the Clerk’s Office, not the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office send its own releases out.

   What James did was misrepresent facts. Even if some process of appointments are inferred, James has the responsibility to report accurate facts to his readers. He can tell readers that the process doesn’t happen exactly according to the rules, but he needs to qualify it with the truth beforehand.

   As a Queens Park policy monkey, I’ve come to understand the important of these procedures and how they are represented in the media because fallacies only aide the rampant cynicism of the electorate. Good on the City Hall communications office for making sure the press understands.

9. The fact that there are errors in some of what Royson said does not necessarily invalidate what he’s saying.

   Yeah, Mel was horrible. But it’s not much of a defence of current Mayor Miller to say that he was better (at least on some issues) than Lastman.

   As for the comments about Miller at least “trying to do something”, politicians are rightly or wrongly judged on the basis of how well/much they achieve of what they promise. Miller seems to be in a repeated pattern of proming, failing to deliver on the promise and then huffing and puffing at those who want to hold him to his promises. Personally, I think someone like Councillor Stintz is very insubstantial, and dangerous when one thinks about the directions she might lead this city. But she is coming across as somewhat credible to more and more people — and the blame for that, I think, is attributable to the Mayor’s clearly-evident arrogance and double-speak.

   As I’ve said before, I do not fault Miller for achieving the deal that he did. I don’t know how any sane person could have expected that an employer does away with a perk like the sick-day bank in one go — except it was the Mayor himself who foolishly fuelled these expectations (not so much because the labor agreements that were outstanding but because of re-positioning himself in the public consciousness for the 2010 campaign).

   If Mel had ever engaged in the grandstanding, sleazy tactics, and overblown dramatics about “a sense of urgency” that Mayor Miller did during the recent negotiations, I’m sure he would have been ridiculed (and rightly so) by many of the commenators who post on this site. The fact that Miller is engaging in these behaviours does not make them any less ridiculous or more acceptable.
   Or less dangerous to civic values.

   As for the comment about the the “corporate communications of City Hall not being politicized”, yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to be in theory. But it doesn’t follow from this that these functions often are not able to be used to “political effect”. They frequently are, as anybody who has ever been inside these shops already knows. I think that some of Grace’s comment still stands. It is good that a non-politicized communications unit alerts the media to errors made by any high-profile columnist. But if an information outlet is going to give these corrections big play, it still has the duty to at least ask whether the “corrections” invalidate the columnist’s argument. Sometimes they do… and sometimes they don’t.

10. 8 years of Mel? It was only 6. But hey, he did give us the moose and told the city to lighten up in a tough time (ie. the Harris era) when provincial-city relations were mean-spirited at best. When was the last Toronto mayor that offered great leadership? Art Eggleton? Never met a ribbon-cutting he didn’t like. June Rowlands? Who you say? Barbara Hall? Don’t remember anything about her term other than talk of Toronto seceding from Metro. Other than Mel, none of the other last mayors around Metro were really notable.

    Even if you totally disagree and can’t stand Miller, he’s at least been the most proactive mayor the city has had in a long time.

11. Lief: You are beig very naive if you believe everything in a press release as “correct”. Read for the nuance.

12. I miss John Barber. He gave Miller his due when warranted, and slammed him when he stepped in it. Beyond David Miller, he could always be counted on to call a spade a spade in municipal politics (he was the only one who did any significant reporting about the way developers completely and utterly control municipal politics in the 905). Sadly he’s moved on to the Review section of the Globe so now we’re stuck with Marcus Gee.

    The only thing that keeps Royson James from the bottom of the heap is Sue-Ann Levy of The Sun, who should never be allowed near a keyboard. Ever.

13. “Never pick a fight with a man who buys his ink by the barrel” – Twain.

    I think some of the comments above are hilarious. James=Fox News? Really? What hyperbolic comparison would Margaret Wente or most of the National Post draw?

    The Star is well stocked of columnists who have no idea what balance means – David Olive, Haroon Siddiqui, Linda McQuaig… James (and Rosie “I should only write on sport and certainly nothing about crime” di Manno) stands out mostly because of the expectation that the Star is basically centre-left.

14. I second the thoughts about John Barber. His dialogue is truly missed on the scene, especially right now.

15. I have given up on Royston James too, if David Miller walked on water (going to the Island Airport?) Royston would say it was because he couldn’t swim. Miller is not perfect but he is certainly not terrible and VASTLY better most of the Councillors who oppose him and a huge improvement on Lastman or some of the Mayors elsewhere in Ontario!

16. It’s amusing to see the variety of ways in which people are misspelling Royson’s name in this thread.

17. I think some of the comments above are hilarious. James=Fox News?

    Why is it that right wingers have the reading comprehension of a gnat?

    Scottd was talking about the *comments* under the James’ article(s), not James himself.

18. Re scottd:

    I’d say reading the Star’s comment section is like reading a whole bunch of internet troll posts – idiotic comments that no sane person would ever consider, and are simply written to create a reaction.

    However, these are not internet trolls. These people are actually serious about what they are writing, and don’t realize how retarded they actually sound.

    Sometimes I hope that most of the accounts belong to a single troll, who re-writes the same comment in various ways over and over again – either to try and piss off the readers of a left leaning newspaper, or in a poor attempt to change people’s political views. However, I highly doubt this to be the case.

    Let this vocal minority sound off, and be thankful our public education system generally produces students with more than single digit IQs.

19. Usually he’s sensible but he has mental twitch when writing about David Miller. Royson James supports Rob Ford more often than him, truly bizarre.

20. Royson James is neither a commentator nor journalist – he is a propagandist. The Mayor is certainly not beyond criticism, but Mr. James’ articles are typically filled with overblown rhetoric, misrepresentations, petty personal attacks and outraged-taxpayer populist sound-bytes. I’ve grown weary of Mr. James’ endless and myopic diatribes against Mr. Miller and his “piggish” allies. He tries to present a faà§ade of balanced journalism, but inevitably he gives-in to his own Harperesque need to get dirty. Mr. James is part of a quasi-reactionary chorus including the likes of Sue-Ann Levy, Peter Worthington, Margarete Wente, Christie Blatchford, Rosie DiManno, and Rex Murphy who are more interested in maintaining a fan base than anything approaching intellectual honesty. Royson James rarely adds anything new or insightful to the debate, but almost always rehashes simplistic and extremely petty gripes and platitudes. He has lost perspective and should move on (as several here have already suggested).

21. Most of the present city councillors are nonentities who will soon be history. Many of the past councillors used to spend much of their time running businesses like marinas , too bad the present lot can’t find something, anything to occupy them before ruining the city completely. I just want my garbage picked up and I want the TTC running when I go to work(of course working escalators and clean toilets with toilet paper and liquid soap is beyond them).

22. I hope you got my message loud and clear, and all is well. Toronto is a great city all it needs now is a leader with vision, and reporters that tell the hole truth about the black community. Gerald.