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rfmcdonaldGawker's controversial crowdsourcing campaign aiming at raising two hundred thousand dollars to buy the alleged crack video has succeeded, though as Torontoist's John Kupferman notes there are still problems.
The motives of a presumably representative sampling of individual donors were covered in the New York Observer.
John Cook, the Gawker editor who is one of three reporters known to have seen the footage (the other two work for the Star), has called it a “crystal clear, well-lit video of the mayor of Toronto smoking crack cocaine.” Gawker intends to publish the video.
Gawker‘s plan to obtain the video this way was never a sure thing, but Cook further tempered expectations last Thursday when he revealed that Gawker has been having trouble getting in touch with the video’s owner since May 18. Ford, for his part, now denies that the video is even a thing. He said, on Sunday’s edition of his weekly radio show, that it “doesn’t exist.”
Regardless, if there is someone out there with access to the video, and if that person is still able to sell the video, things should move pretty quickly now. If the deal doesn’t come together, Gawker has pledged to donate the money to a Canadian non-profit that deals with drug addiction, though its editors haven’t said which one.
The motives of a presumably representative sampling of individual donors were covered in the New York Observer.
Dennis Raphael, a professor at York University in Toronto, made two $75 donations in the hope that the video’s release would force Mr. Ford to resign. “Around Toronto, there is little doubt that Mayor Rob is unfit for office and has a reputation for denying wrongdoing until [he’s] confronted with confirming evidence,” he said. As for Gawker’s possible payday? “Everybody is making money off of everything,” he said. “If some money can be made at the same time that public accountability can be supported, then so be it!”
Daphne Bonar, also of Toronto, donated $60 to the Crackstarter for similar reasons. “If the video is real, I want Rob Ford to be exposed as a liar who is unfit for public office,” she said. She did not mind that Gawker might make some money off of the whole endeavor. “That’s the business they’re in,” she said.
Steve Nardi, a Toronto resident who donated $105, is happy that Gawker is crowd-sourcing the project rather than paying for it themselves. “If [Gawker] had purchased the video outright, the Ford Nation [Mr. Ford’s supporters] would bang the drums about it being ‘checkbook journalism’ and attempt to cast doubt on the authenticity of the video.” The Crackstarter, on the other hand, shows that “the video is being acquired by the people of Toronto who are looking for the truth, sort of ‘democratic journalism.’” If Mr. Ford’s supporters are unhappy, he said, they will be able to “blame the people of Toronto rather than singling out one or two media outlets.”
For Ms. Bonar, the crowd-sourced nature of the Crackstarter is almost more important than the video itself. “Even if the video is never actually obtained, just the message that this sends and the sort of participatory democracy that it demonstrates, is a greater good,” she said.
