Toronto Mayor Rob Ford took to the airwaves Sunday and criticized the very radio station on which he was broadcasting — Newstalk 1010.
On his weekly show "The City" with his brother Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor discussed his recent trip to Chicago and took time to slam the media's coverage of the mission.
The mayor has had a rough couple of weeks, with the media reporting that Ford has been using office resources to help run a high school football team he coaches and that he recently made a request to fast-track repairs to the road outside his family's business.
Ford was also mocked by the press during the Chicago trip for mixing up Winnipeg and Windsor and for telling reporters to "go home."
Early in his Newtalk 1010 program, Ford reiterated an earlier assertion that the trip to Chicago "didn't cost the taxpayers a dime."
While the mayor did pay his own way to Chicago, eight councillors who travelled with Ford are expected to put the the trip on their office budgets.
The mayor's brother seemed to hint soon after that the trip wouldn't be exactly cost free for taxpayers.
"The economic development department, we said from the beginning, within their budget you have to bring the ECDEV people and you have to bring a couple staffers."
It was after Newstalk ran a promotional piece during commercials that suggested Ford's expense claims were untrue that the mayor and his brother really let the media have it (you can find the audio of the exchange here).
"We've done more in this administration than any other administration ever has and then the media, I don't know what they want, I guess they want a bankruptcy, I guess they want a ghost town," the mayor said.
Councillor Ford interrupted to share his own assessment of Toronto's journalists. "They have this sense of entitlement, the media, that they can go in and write the stories, and let me say something folks, when you go back at the media, man, they're like a bunch of little sucky little kids."
"They are," the mayor agreed.
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"They whine and cry and moan and they sensationalize and they lie through their teeth," Councillor Ford said.
"They're pathological liars, that's what drives me nuts. Even today, we talk about an hour on Chicago and now these guys come out and put advertising on about expenses. They don't even know what the expenses are because the councillors said (inaudible). This is all going to balance out at the end and I'm going to stick to what I said, it's not costing taxpayers a dime. The bills haven't even come in folks," the mayor said.
The Ford brothers then went on to say that even Chicago's media couldn't believe the coverage Canadian journalists were giving the trip.
Councillor Ford said journalists from The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune asked "what is wrong with your media? They're embarrassing your city."
"It's true, they said that," the mayor agreed.
It seems the Ford brothers missed the NBC Chicago column on the trip which ran with the headline "Big, Obnoxious Toronto Mayor Visits Chicago, Blends In Too Well."
Newstalk 1010 has generally been favourable in their coverage of the Ford brothers. Host Jerry Agar even recently wrote a column praising the trip to Chicago.
The mayor was conciliatory as he ended the show, heaping praise on the station.
Users on Twitter speculated that biting the hand that metaphorically feeds them might not be the wisest move for the Brothers Ford.
Many users posted links to a Toronto Star story highlighting a number of inaccuracies in the mayor's talk show statements.
Maybe we'll hear Ford clear those facts up on next week's program.
