Putting the Rob Ford Reality Show in Our Rear View Mirror

Hmmm, when the crack-smoking mayor story runs out of steam, where will the media sharks find their next meal?

For those of you in other parts of the country or south of the border, you need to know that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is in the midst of a raging political firestorm. He is under intense pressure to resign or take a leave of absence after admitting to being inebriated in public and smoking crack. A civil war has erupted between him and a majority of the other city councillors.

You may have heard the network late-night talk show hosts lampooning Ford in recent days. The media here have been in a feeding frenzy for days over the story and aren’t likely to stop anytime soon. Unfortunately, Ford – who is the living definition of a “loose cannon” – digs himself ten feet deeper into the hole he is in every time he speaks out to defend himself.

It would be very easy to fill this post with a rambling rant about Ford and his spectacular freefall. He’s alternately infuriating and pitiable. But it doesn’t seem right to give him more notoriety when the stories being bumped from the front page headlines include:

The death toll from Philippines typhoon continues to climb while thousands of survivors squat in the Tacloban Astrodome waiting for help to arrive and scores of bodies are buried in a mass grave the size of an Olympic swimming pool…

396 children are rescued as a Toronto man is arrested for the largest, most extensive commercial child pornography ring ever uncovered here in Canada. People from all over the world paid him to provide them with explicit videos of children…

A 50 year old woman is recovering, after being pulled from the wreckage of an airplane crash in northwestern Ontario, while she grieves the lives of the five people who died in the crash…

Residents of Leamington, Ontario – a quaint town of 28,000 in southwestern Ontario – deal with the news that the town’s largest employer is shutting down putting 740 people out of work. The Leamington Heinz plant, the second largest Heinz plant in the world which has been in operation since 1909, is the cornerstone of the local economy.

These heartbreaking stories are being bumped to page two while the Rob Ford reality show staggers on with no end in sight. I’m certain that the print and TV news executives roll out of bed each morning salivating at the thought of what new, outrageous thing Ford might say.

I’ve griped on more than one occasion about the media sharks and their propensity for blood-in-the-water feeding frenzies. I’m not sure which is the greater evil – the loose cannons who rage in front of the TV cameras or the media bottom-feeders who encourage it.

What I do know is that the Rob Ford scandal will eventually implode and mercifully fade away. The news stories will be archived and life will go on. But the lives of the people in the real news stories highlighted above may never be the same. They deserve better than second billing to a self-destructive politician who doesn’t know when to shut up.

So I’ll go looking for my metaphors in the heroic struggle of lives touched by tragedy rather than the self-imposed, downward spiral of a man who is his own worst enemy. Let’s put Rob Ford in our rear view mirror while we turn our attention to those who really need our help.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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