[URBAN NOTE] "Rob Ford video scandal: Deputy mayor says he believes Star reporter"

[rfmcdonald]

The title of David Rider's Toronto Star article is slightly misleading, but it at least clears things up in the first two paragraphs.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday says that, after speaking to Star reporter Robyn Doolittle, he believes there is a video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.

However, Holyday told reporters at city hall on Tuesday that he is not yet convinced the video actually shows Ford taking drugs.

Holyday said he was convinced by Doolittle during a “general conversation,” in the Star’s city hall bureau last week. “She took the time to assure me that she had seen the video and that she believed it . . .

“I believe that there’s a tape all right because she told me there was a tape and I believe what she said. It’s whether the tape is authentic or not.

“I haven’t seen the tape and I think the only way to know to really know if the tape is authentic, and to satisfy everyone, is for it to be found and analyzed and then we would know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Ford has adamantly declared that there is no cellphone video even though Doolittle and colleague Kevin Donovan both say they were shown it in a car in Etobicoke on May 3. John Cook, editor in chief of U.S. website Gawker, says he was also shown the video and described it in similar terms.