The Toronto Star is out to politically kill Mayor Rob Ford, his brother Doug says.
The comments came as Councillor Ford anchored Sunday’s radio show solo. He accused Star city hall reporter Robyn Doolittle of stalking people in Florida who knew the Fords.
Doolittle is one of three reporters who claim to have seen an alleged video of the mayor smoking crack cocaine.
“You want to come after Rob and I, we’re open game,” he said. “Don’t worry about my dad that passed away in 2006, don’t worry about my mother, my 78-year-old mother down in Florida, going to tennis to play with the seniors.”
He had previously accused Doolittle of stalking his mother in 2011.
Ford’s rant lasted almost 10 minutes, with a large part dedicated to a phone call from Vito, the president of the Fords’ Florida condominium board.
Vito, who did not give his last name, said a young woman, who he later identified as Doolittle, recently approached him about the Fords.
“She was interrogating me sort of for answers and I gave her truthful answers and finally the way she was talking to me, I said ‘Are you a reporter?’” he said. “And she says to me ‘Well I do work for a newspaper but this has nothing to do with the newspaper, this is a personal history that I’m compiling.’”
The caller claimed he was asked if the Fords “party hard and drink a lot.”
“I said they don’t party,” he said. “If they partied, I’d be the first one to know because I would get all the complaints from the other residents.”
Ford then apologized to Vito for “the media harassing you.”
“As far as I’m concerned, in my opinion, Robyn Doolittle, you need serious counselling,” Ford said.
Doolittle confirmed she’d spoken with a man named Vito. She tweeted he “was very friendly and happy to chat with a Toronto newspaper reporter.”
When asked, she would not clarify if she spoke with Vito for a Star story.
“I think it’s very unusual to comment on reporting,” she said.
