As though you hadn't already figured that one out, huh? When even Toronto Life headlines a blog post "Non-existent poll gives Rob Ford fictional lead over Smitherman," it's fair to say the jig is up and that the oft-recurring gossip is bogus.  What is interesting, however, and is the explanation I so very much want to believe, is that it was supposedly a rumour deliberately planted to test the laziness of the City Hall press corps. A call to the senior staffer who we were told had started the whispers "for fun" didn't really yield much in the way of an admission: "I know not what you speak of," followed by repeated refusals to comment on the matter or any related issues.  Fair enough.  Hardly incriminating. But it's not so much the origin that interests me as it is the purported motive.  Here's a breakdown of how the story played out, media-wise:

It probably says something that Rob Ford is being more restrained and thoughtful than even the Toronto Star these days.  Pressed by the Post for comment on Adam Giambrone's taxi bill, he told Natalie Alcoba that "it's not fair to single anyone out." (The media similarly tried to extract a nutzoid soundbite from Ford following Giambrone's pulling-out press conference, but he refused to indulge them then, too.)  It's one thing for the Toronto Sun to gleefully slap together cover stories about meaningless things, but (let's be honest) we all hold the Star to a much higher standard. "Councillor expensed chipmunk costume" is a wonderful phrase, to be sure, but do you know what the proper medium for it is?  A tweet.  Not a headline on the front page of a daily newspaper.  Oh my goodness, Star, you came across something quirky on the City's website!  Good for you! *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*

A photo I took when we went through this ritual in mid-2008. Context! June 13, 2008.  A Friday.  I was covering City Hall for Eye Weekly at the time. At 2:24 in the afternoon, the City put out a press release.  Seventeen minutes later, my editor forwarded it to me, asking if I had any idea what it was about: Media Advisory: Mayor David Miller to make important announcement Media are advised that Mayor David Miller will make an important announcement today. Date: TODAY - Friday, June 13 Time: 5:30 p.m. Location: Mayor’s Protocol Lounge, 2nd Floor, City Hall, 100 Queen St. W. Reasoning that it was either really good/important news (something so urgent they were announcing it late on a Friday afternoon) or really bad/embarrassing news (something so unfortunate they were announcing it late on a Friday afternoon), I decided that it was worth my time to schlep down to City Hall.  So did the rest of the media, who — along with a whole whack of curious councillors and political staffers — enthusiastically stuffed into Miller's office much as they did today, to hear what course-altering proclamation the mayor had in store.

As pedestrian deaths started to mount to disturbing numbers in January, the response at first was a combination of concern, blame that was reasonably balanced between both drivers and pedestrians, and, occasionally, some thoughtful discussion. Then, in the last week of January, the response suddenly changed for the worse. On Wednesday Jan. 27, Toronto woke up to radio, TV and newspapers saturated with stories about reckless pedestrians, and images of Toronto Police "blitzing" pedestrian behaviour in downtown Toronto. Suddenly it was pedestrians' fault for getting themselves killed. While a few drivers were ticketed too, they were not emphasized in the stories. What happened? The change in tone seems to have been a direct response to the police campaign. The first sign was a segment on CBC TV's The National on Jan. 26, where the cameras were there to watch police warn pedestrians and then drive along with a policeman as he talked about reckless pedestrians. The next day, the stories focused on police stopping people on foot for various infractions in the downtown business district. They had plenty of quotes or clips from police representatives and the pedestrians being stopped, and not many from others. There was only minimal discussion about driver behaviour, mostly buried at the end of the stories. Now that the deadly January and, I hope, the police crackdown are past, it's a good time to look back and analyze the whole affair, one last time, in more depth. I've heard outrage from a lot of people about this police campaign, and it had various negative effects on pedestrianism in Toronto.