John Cook, Gawker reporter and the guy who lit the fuse that exploded into the epic Mayor Rob Ford Crack scandal, has a new post saying the video is now probably “gone.” What does that mean? And is there any hope for Canada’s hopes of entering the scandal big leagues?
The gist of Cook’s report is that he got back in touch with the ‘intermediary’ who showed him the video of Mayor Ford smoking crack after he’d been silent since just after the story just broke. The intermediary finally heard from the owner of the tape who told him to tell Cook “It’s gone. Leave me alone.”
The owner apparently didn’t get very specific about what “gone” meant but it does seem clear that the media circus surprised and spooked the owner (who may not be very smart?) and there’s been massive pressure from within Toronto’s Somali immigrant community to make the story go away.
Now, besides the reporters at the Toronto Star, there’s no question that Cook is better sourced on this story than anyone out there. But I do have some sources up in Toronto myself now. And based on what I’d call not reporting but extremely high grade hearsay and scuttlebutt the impression that I got earlier this week was that albeit slowly the video might perhaps slowly be making its way public. So Cook’s news puts a serious damper on any excitement that news created.
How it was expressed to me was that owners of the video were dealing with 1) fears of potential future dealings with Canadian immigration authorities, 2) fears of future dealings with fellow crack dealers who don’t appreciate snitches or global media attention, 3) intense pressure from within the Toronto Somali community to STFU and at least possibly 4) fears of future dealings with the Ford family.
So was it destroyed? Did the Fords get hold of it or get it destroyed? Does the owner of the tape just not want to sell it anymore but it still exists? And c’mon, this is a friggin’ iPhone video: is it even remotely possible that there’s only one copy?
