Ford scrapping media bus for campaign

[oneh2obabe]

Ford scrapping media bus for campaign suggests Tories want him out of the hot seat: experts.

Spokeswoman said Ford's campaign events will be broadcast online and his itinerary will be released.

<snip>Ontario's newly minted Progressive Conservative leader will not bring journalists with him on the campaign trail this spring, a rare move experts say suggests the Tories are keen to keep the unpredictable populist politician out of the hot seat as he takes on two more seasoned rivals.

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Doug Ford's team said Wednesday the former Toronto city councillor will not have a media bus following him as he criss-crosses the province ahead of the June election, an accommodation traditionally offered by Ontario's party leaders to facilitate coverage while they hold multiple daily events in different cities.

Spokeswoman Melissa Lantsman said Ford's campaign events will be broadcast online and his itinerary will be released for media interested in covering them in person.

"Most media outlets have shifted to covering events from their office and relying on live feeds. It is in our interest to have as much media coverage as possible and will do everything we can to ensure our events are streamed online to assist in that," she said in an email.

Experts say the decision suggests a campaign strategy that centres on limiting questions and preventing Ford — a brash politician whose candid remarks often make headlines — from publicly going off-script.

And while this approach may prove effective politically, it's concerning for democracy, they say.

"He is attempting to bypass the accountability function of the free press by limiting access to his campaign. This will not prevent coverage, but it alters the degree of access and creates a different, more opaque degree of transparency in the campaign," said Tim Abray, a former journalist and current teaching fellow in political science at Queen's University.

"This should not be blown off as insignificant," he said.<snip>

Full article
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/d ... -1.4605894

[Gone_Fishin]

Ooooooooh, the CBC doesn't like being told they can't be around to make up #fakenews about Doug Ford while they campaign tirelessly for Kathleen Wynne. Whodathunkit?

[oneh2obabe]

Link was CBC but the original story came from ...
The Canadian Press · Posted: Apr 05, 2018 6:02 AM ET | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

Or you can read it in the Toronto Sun
http://torontosun.com/news/provincial/f ... at-experts

[Bsuds]

I don't think anyone in BC really cares about Ford except to think how stupid Ontarian's were to elect him.