After more than six years of living in Babel, we still get the Toronto Star delivered seven days a week. It costs money but it is worth it. We know the paper, we know the editorial stances, we know the sections, we know many of the reporters and editorial writers and the wife likes the style of the guy who writes the horoscopes. We also know that the owner of the Toronto Star, Torstar, owns local newspapers throughout the Province of Ontario that are absolute crap. And that is why we get the impression that largest circulation newspaper in Babel is the Toronto Star.
This is being mentioned because a story broke on the front page of the Star on Wednesday about the Babel Police. Babel does not make the front page of the Toronto Star all that often. It had to do with an ongoing human rights complaint that goes back more than a few years. It appears to combine misogynist orders, police nepotism, sexual harassment, family arguments and other run of the mill policing matters. And on the plus side, the complainant photographs well.
The twice-weekly local publication in Babel that is owned by Torstar, arrived on Thursday, replete with grocery and drugstore flyers, with a small box on the front page that there was a human rights case against the Babel police by a prisoner who had a miscarriage. At least the other Babel paper had got a reporter out to interview the complainant—a former police officer who said she had a miscarriage—and provide a story quite similar to the original Toronto Star one. As the next edition of the Torstar rag is not out until next Tuesday, the best it could do was issue a correction on its website and add the Toronto Star story.
The broadcast media were not to be left out of the equation and they were invited to a news conference hosted by the chief of police and the chair of the Police Services Board. As the board lawyers had obviously advised them not to say anything, they said nothing that was useful or worth quoting. It was all the broadcast boys and girls were going to get so they ran with it.
The people who will enjoy this the most will be the lawyers. The only reason the complainant has a lawyer in these cases is because they want money. If she is lucky, the lawyers might leave the former constable enough to buy a gift certificate for sensitivity training for her daddy next Fathers’ Day.
What is for sure is there will be a concerted effort to sweep the entire matter under the rug again. The only thing that the police chief said at his news conference was that the Whitby police would be investigating the matter. That is a small town investigating another small town and you may be excused for thinking that the only questions asked will be in regard to the size of budget for expenses and the brand of whitewash preferred.
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