Reaction roundup: Michael Bryant is tarnished but still golden, according to Toronto’s newspapers
The end-game of Michael Bryant‘s legal troubles may not be the only story in town, but it is certainly dominating the front pages today, thanks in no small part to photos showing Darcy Allan Sheppard confronting other drivers in situations similar to Bryant’s terrible night last fall. Toronto’s big dailies all had a kick at the Bryant can this morning, publishing editorials and commentary that dealt with questions of justice, fairness and, of course, the social schisms that the Bryant affair has laid bare in Toronto. Here, a quick survey of the mediascape.
The Toronto Star says we saw “justice,” arguing that the system worked just as it should. Somewhat creepily, the paper argues near the end of its editorial that what happened to Bryant could happen to anyone, as if this wasn’t a story precisely because it’s such a freak occurrence.
Continuing in the Star, Rosie DiManno gives us a tick-tock of the night in question and is one of the few reporters to dwell a bit on Sheppard’s past with anything more than a mention of his drug and psychological problems, noting that the bike courier bounced around foster homes as a child.
The Globe and Mail‘s Christie Blatchford drops the F-bomb—well, the other F-bomb. Favouritism. While saying that the system got the right result, Blatch says, “Unless you were born yesterday, what Michael Bryant got by way of justice was not the ordinary sort, but the extra-fair sort.”
Meanwhile, the paper’s editorial board says with a flourish, “The poisoned arrow of wrongful accusation no longer points at an innocent man.”
The Post chimes in, echoing the other two papers in its sympathy for Bryant; the Post is self-conscious enough to note the irony of Canada’s conservative masthead going to bat for the once (and maybe future) Liberal star. Most amusing is the paper’s analysis that what the Bryant incident proves is that the divisions between east and west Toronto are so over: the real division is between north and south (of Bloor).
With the Star (south of Union Station, people) and the Post (at Don Mills and York Mills) in agreement that Bryant is exonerated, the city is probably not looking at a civil war any time soon.
• Justice in Michael Bryant case [Toronto Star]
• DiManno: The 28 seconds that changed Michael Bryant’s life [Toronto Star]
• For Michael Bryant, an extraordinary kind of justice [Globe and Mail]
• Michael Bryant: a good day for justice [Globe and Mail]
• Judge Bryant on his merits [National Post]
• Analysis: Bryant case highlights divide between south and north [National Post]
Watching our media cave-in to a corrupt system is sickening. Are they putting pressure on you people now too? I wouldn’t doubt it for one second. Not one of those news sources listed is even close to being accurate or honest. The 1,000,000,000,000% bottom line here is that if YOU or I pulled a stunt like that, we would be toast, no two ways about it. At the absolute very least, you would have been given an opportunity to plead to lesser charges……NOT WALK OUT THE DOOR UNSCATHED !!!!! Nice try. THEY DO NOT just abandon their position on serious cases like this…EVER !!!!!!! It’s not practical to let people just walk because they then have options for crying foul. A person convicted is now a societal cripple, an offender, and someone completely out of options for retaliation. That is how our system works. This case could be a good opportunity for that minion Bentley to change the name of his ministry to the Ministry of Yea Right. At least then people would know what they’re dealing with. Have a nice life Mikey….. the nightmares should start to fade in 30-40 years for sure.
I find how the media just demonized Darcy Sheppard to the point where he had such little value, the man that hit him and ran off twice, walks away because this ex boxing guru was “fearful” insulting & disgusting.
The media is again losing creditability while buying into a plutocratic society. Many of us were disgusted at a million dollar facility build for the press on the back of hard working taxpayers for the G20, then accepting free food and drink for the duration, while thinking the public accepts these actions on their dollar? Yea, just as much as they buy into the mentioned articles above. The public needed to see a trial, plain and simple.
There is no integrity or true reporting anymore, and this article is going where it so aptly belongs, in the bottom of a bird cage.