Mean Streets? Sensationalizing Toronto's social problems

"Too much po-po on road/Phone calls on hold/Mistakes untold/One too many people in the hole/Isolated from they goals..." -Stump of Point Blank, "Thin Line 2002"

It's a bright Sunday morning in Toronto, easily the safest city its size on this side of the world, and what plops on your doorstep?
The Sunday Sun and its special report on crime with the heading "MEAN STREETS." Now let's be real, T.O. has its problems. I didn't grow up in one of the "13 troubled neighbourhoods" profiled in this report, and I still know quite a few people who've been murdered, shot or whatever and I've got many friends stuck on the wrong side of the law, lost in a world of drug-dealing, robbery and prostitution. But Toronto just isn't the wild wild west the Sun would have you--and out-of-town readers and tourists visiting the city--to believe. Look at the first few lines of the story.

"On any given day, the piercing shriek of police sirens echo through Toronto's neighbourhoods. In some, it's background noise. Knife fights, robberies, gang violence, drug busts, gunfire, sexual assaults, even murder if not routine are common.

Besides that, the headlines on the first page of the report read "Cleaning up the streets" and "High levels of poverty, unemployment." The map of Toronto's priority neighbourhoods on the following page includes a cute little graphic of a handgun and some ecstasy pills along with crime statistics for each 'hood.

I would like to know what purpose this kind of journalism serves. Does the Sun want to scare tourists and 905ers from visiting our beautiful city? Is it to make residents of T.O.'s so-called troubled neighbourhoods feel bad about themselves? Maybe it is some type of editorial aimed at the city, province and federal governments, a way to call attention to our problems and force those in power to shell out the resources to fix them. I highly doubt it's the latter.

The funny thing is if you read the entire story on the first page of the special, buried in the body of the article is useful information and critique of programs already in place for solving the city's crime problems. Turn the page to the next part of the special report and the headlines are suddenly sunnier: "They are making a difference," "Cash doesn't solve all the problems, but it helps," "Acting for change" and "Breaking the stigma of Jane-Finch." The bold encouraging words sit atop well-written stories about what the police, governments, school boards, public housing landlords, community groups and the communities themselves are doing to effect change in their neighbourhoods. You might even call it pretty damn good journalism.

This begs the question: why weren't those nice stories the focus of the report? Did they not warrant a big front-page headline? I guess positivity just doesn't sell newspapers. At least not to Sun readers.

Anyway, I happened to log on to the Toronto Star website's Toronto & GTA section and I found a very different view of Toronto. Two articles, "Toronto, our metropolis of small but proud villages" and "We define ourselves by our neighbourhoods," describe our city as one of distinct neighbourhoods with historic names, vibrant communities and unique cultures, not just city council wards and census tracts with robbery and assault statistics. That's the T.O. I know.

Peace...