The Star’s Robyn Doolittle has had a crazy week
The Toronto Star’s Robyn Doolittle won the race to publish a comprehensive treatment of Rob Ford’s crack scandal with the release of her book Crazy Town on Monday. On Thursday night, her publicity campaign reached an apex when she appeared on The Daily Show. Here’s a look at that, as well as some of the other weird and amazing things that apparently happen to a person who manages to satisfy the world’s curiosity about a mayor who smokes crack.
1. The Gawker Party
Toronto media types are obsessed with Gawker. The New York-based news-and-gossip website’s mean, clever tone is something that has never been emulated in Canada with any success. The cross-border news crush intensified in May 2013, when Gawker became the first outlet to publish a story about the Rob Ford crack video.
And so imagine the extent of the jealousy when everyone found out that Gawker had thrown Doolittle a book-launch party on January 31. There’s even a photo of her passing a fake crack pipe to John Cook.
2. The Flare Profile
Print journalists don’t tend to be a camera-ready bunch. And then there’s Doolittle, who warrants a multi-page spread in Canada’s third biggest fashion magazine. Flare’s profile of her, released online on Tuesday, is a good read, full of detail about the difficulties involved in being a twenty-something woman and chasing a controversial story. According to the article, Doolittle’s hate mail got so vicious at one point that she spent a night teaching herself to aim a canister of bear spray.
3. The Daily Show Appearance
Doolittle held her own against Jon Stewart, and she even managed to get a few laughs from the audience (although, somewhat tellingly, most of the laughter came after factual statements about Ford’s behaviour). Late in the interview, Stewart upped the stakes. “This man is going to die,” he said, “and probably relatively soon.”
Doolittle tried to explain Ford’s help-the-little-guy appeal. “Let him be your country’s super,” Stewart replied. “Let him be the concierge, if you will.”
The whole show can be streamed online for free.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/robyn-doolittle-daily-show/&title=The <em>Star</em>’s Robyn Doolittle has had a crazy week&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/robyn-doolittle-daily-show-624x395.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_258703" align="alignnone" width="656"] Robyn Doolittle on The Daily Show (Image: CTV/Screenshot)[/caption]
The Toronto Star’s Robyn Doolittle won the race to publish a comprehensive treatment of Rob Ford’s crack scandal with the release of her book Crazy Town on Monday. On Thursday night, her publicity campaign reached an apex when she appeared on The Daily Show. Here's a look at that, as well as some of the other weird and amazing things that apparently happen to a person who manages to satisfy the world's curiosity about a mayor who smokes crack.
1. The Gawker Party
Toronto media types are obsessed with Gawker. The New York-based news-and-gossip website's mean, clever tone is something that has never been emulated in Canada with any success. The cross-border news crush intensified in May 2013, when Gawker became the first outlet to publish a story about the Rob Ford crack video.
And so imagine the extent of the jealousy when everyone found out that Gawker had thrown Doolittle a book-launch party on January 31. There's even a photo of her passing a fake crack pipe to John Cook.
[caption id="attachment_258702" align="alignnone" width="656"] Gawker's John Cook and Robyn Doolittle (Image: Dodge & Burn/Facebook)[/caption]
2. The Flare Profile
Print journalists don’t tend to be a camera-ready bunch. And then there's Doolittle, who warrants a multi-page spread in Canada's third biggest fashion magazine. Flare’s profile of her, released online on Tuesday, is a good read, full of detail about the difficulties involved in being a twenty-something woman and chasing a controversial story. According to the article, Doolittle's hate mail got so vicious at one point that she spent a night teaching herself to aim a canister of bear spray.
3. The Daily Show Appearance
Doolittle held her own against Jon Stewart, and she even managed to get a few laughs from the audience (although, somewhat tellingly, most of the laughter came after factual statements about Ford's behaviour). Late in the interview, Stewart upped the stakes. "This man is going to die," he said, "and probably relatively soon."
Doolittle tried to explain Ford's help-the-little-guy appeal. "Let him be your country's super," Stewart replied. "Let him be the concierge, if you will."
The whole show can be streamed online for free.){kind=link}
Robyn is clearly more apt with the written word than with public speaking but with practice she could make a great talking head. Hopefully this would be in a venue where the truth is told and not in the sphere of mainstream Canadian broadcasting where the talking heads are little more than shills for the Harper Oil Hegemony Agenda.