{"id":17940,"date":"2011-02-14T11:40:29","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T15:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=17940"},"modified":"2011-02-14T12:01:28","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:01:28","slug":"lorinc-one-question-for-adrienne-batra-mayor-rob-fords-press-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/02\/14\/lorinc-one-question-for-adrienne-batra-mayor-rob-fords-press-secretary\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: One Question for Adrienne Batra, Mayor Rob Ford&#8217;s press secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"is this rob ford?\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3649\/3619869578_e0e2acee35_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/spacingmedia.com\/uploads\/toronto\/feature-lorinc.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"85\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Dear Adrienne,<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sorry to hear about the mayor\u2019s health problems, and I hope he\u2019s making a swift recovery.<\/p>\n<p>I thought you might like to know what\u2019s been circulating in the City Hall press gallery since last Monday, when the mayor launched\u00a0 the City\u2019s bid to outsource garbage collection. As you will surely recall, the noon-hour press conference was a highly stage-managed affair. Reporters weren\u2019t allowed access to the member\u2019s lounge to set up until moments before, and the city\u2019s communications officials distributed the accompanying press materials at the last possible moment.<\/p>\n<p>Not only did your office not bother supplying any kind of backgrounder to explain the rationale behind the move. We had virtually no time to absorb the sparse information that was provided before the mayor arrived.<\/p>\n<p>As has been widely noted elsewhere, he had nothing of substance to say before he left. When Councillor Denzil-Minnan-Wong took over to make a somewhat more detailed statement, you sought to shut down the Q&amp;A session after just three queries. Why Minnan-Wong, a seasoned scrummer, would be subject to the same dubious media relations approach as the mayor is anything but obvious.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In the days following, and against the backdrop of the much-hyped visit from Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, many of us in the City Hall press corps found ourselves hashing over this increasingly surreal situation.<\/p>\n<p>We are told by official sources that Toronto\u2019s mayor is, indeed, Rob Ford. But he is nowhere to be seen, and he says nothing. He will not publicly defend, much less champion, the policy positions that swept him into office, and this despite years of service as an extraordinarily outspoken city councilor who rarely shied away from a microphone or camera. We are forced to run to brother Doug to get a taste of the mayor\u2019s positions. But he\u2019s an unsatisfying and, frankly, unqualified surrogate.<\/p>\n<p>Why is it necessary for a political leader to face the press?<\/p>\n<p>This is not a self-indulgent or mischievous question, yet it needs to be posed. Yes, we will vigorously challenge your boss, as we did with his predecessors. That is our job. But we do so to better inform the city\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n<p>When Ford refuses to speak to the media, he is obviously refusing to speak to the voters, both those who supported him and those who didn\u2019t. I haven\u2019t got a clue whom among my <em>Spacing<\/em> or <em>Globe and Mail <\/em>readers backed Ford and who voted for George Smitherman or Joe Pantalone. But I can assure you they all pay property taxes and TTC fares and user fees, and they want to know what he plans to do with their money.<\/p>\n<p>My colleague Rob Granatstein, at The Sun, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.torontosun.com\/comment\/columnists\/rob_granatstein\/2011\/02\/11\/17242661.html\">noted yesterday<\/a> that \u201cFord\u2019s job isn\u2019t to be a cheerleader or effervescent.\u201d True enough. But he concluded that the mayoral mute button strategy seemed to be \u201cworking.\u201d \u201cIt may not be traditional,\u201d Granatstein wrote, \u201cbut in this case it\u2019s probably smart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I respectfully disagree. The strong-silent-type approach may seem like a tactical advantage in the short-term. But the city\u2019s residents, including Ford supporters, will eventually begin to wonder why the mayor will not or can not take advantage of his uniquely visible position to sell his policies to voters.<\/p>\n<p>His answers needn\u2019t be slick or witty. But his positions do need to be articulated, and not just by his minions, because the electoral buck does stop with him. If your boss succeeds with his program, he\u2019ll want to take credit come 2014. But by the same logic, if something goes wrong on his watch, he\u2019ll be held accountable. Kitchen\u2026heat, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Based on my read of the press gallery\u2019s obstreperous mood after last week\u2019s outsourcing announcement, Ford is rapidly running out of get-out-of-jail free cards.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, a major test of your guy\u2019s communications strategy is hurtling down the track like a, well, subway train. If and when you finalize the new transit plan, the mayor will have no choice but to explain himself.<\/p>\n<p>Your office insisted on negotiating directly with Metrolinx while TTC chair Karen Stintz was told to watch from the sidelines. This move, the very capstone of his mayoralty campaign, will consume billions of dollars in taxpayer money and dramatically alter the way the city grows and moves in the coming decades.<\/p>\n<p>Adrienne, there will be more than three questions.<\/p>\n<p>Yours,<br \/>\nJohn.<\/p>\n<p>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/shaunpierre\/3619869578\/\">Shaun Merritt<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Adrienne, I\u2019m sorry to hear about the mayor\u2019s health problems, and I hope he\u2019s making a swift recovery. I thought you might like to know what\u2019s been circulating in the City Hall press gallery since last Monday, when the mayor launched\u00a0 the City\u2019s bid to outsource garbage collection. As you will surely recall, the<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/02\/14\/lorinc-one-question-for-adrienne-batra-mayor-rob-fords-press-secretary\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;LORINC: One Question for Adrienne Batra, Mayor Rob Ford&#8217;s press secretary&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17084,661,17087,12810,408,16332,17089,6245,313,1103,1969,426,17088,16578,17086,22085,17085,227,4844,10762,19,362],"class_list":["post-17940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-adrienne-batra","tag-calgary","tag-cheerleader","tag-communications-strategy","tag-councillor","tag-doug","tag-dubious-media-relations","tag-george-smitherman","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-joe-pantalone","tag-karen-stintz","tag-mayor","tag-mayor-rob-fords-press-secretary","tag-naheed-nenshi","tag-political-leader","tag-politics","tag-press-secretary","tag-rob-ford","tag-rob-granatstein","tag-shaun-merritt","tag-toronto","tag-ttc-chair"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>LORINC: One Question for Adrienne Batra, Mayor Rob Ford&#039;s press secretary - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/02\/14\/lorinc-one-question-for-adrienne-batra-mayor-rob-fords-press-secretary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: One Question for Adrienne Batra, Mayor Rob Ford&#039;s press secretary - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Adrienne, I\u2019m sorry to hear about the mayor\u2019s health problems, and I hope he\u2019s making a swift recovery. 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