The Star’s story on a video that appeared to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack was an example of responsible journalism, the Ontario Press Council has ruled, dismissing a public complaint made against the paper and confirming its reporters followed rigorous ethical standards.

A three-judge panel decided the Star acted in the public interest, that Star reporters were thorough in attempting to verify the authenticity of the video, and that they gave Ford adequate opportunity to respond before the article was published.

Because it fulfilled these three conditions, the council ruled the story treated Ford fairly, balancing his rights to privacy against those of the public interest.

“We decided that the Star had met the requirements of good investigative journalism,” panel chair George Thomson told the Star. “There’s a standard for responsible communication in the public interest, and (the Star) had met that standard.”

Doug Ford dismissed the ruling on radio station AM 640 on Wednesday morning, saying the press council lacked credibility because the decision was made by Toronto Star sympathizers. The process “just comes down to a witch hunt,” he told host John Oakley.

“Who is the press council?” Ford said. “They’re a bunch of their own cronies, all the insiders, trying to make judgments on the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail. A lot of them probably worked for the Toronto Star at one point.”

“You take a look at some of their backgrounds, who they work for, who they’re connected with. It’s their own inside bunch of cronies making the decision. That’s my opinion.”

The panel that heard the complaints against both the Star and the Globe was chaired by Thomson, a former judge, deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general.

Also on the panel were Joanne De Laurentiis, president and CEO of the Investment Funds Institute of Canada and a former vice-president of the Canadian Bankers Association, and the Ottawa Citizen’s deputy editor, Drew Gragg.

“Our role was not to determine the truth of any allegations contained in the story, but to look at whether the work done by the Star as part of its investigative reporting met the standards it ought to have met,” Thomson told the Star.

Star editor Michael Cooke was confident that every effort had been made to verify the allegations and report them responsibly.

“The Star takes reader concerns about our standards very seriously, and this particular complaint was no exception,” Cooke said. “This ruling is a validation of our journalists’ comportment during the reporting of this story and reaffirms guidelines for future investigative reporting by all Canadian journalists.”

Darylle Donely, who filed the complaint against the Star, declined to comment on the decision Wednesday.

In a separate ruling, the press council also dismissed a complaint made against the Globe and Mail for its story alleging that Councillor Doug Ford dealt hashish during high school.

The mayor’s brother also argued that story was not in the public interest.

“Number one, the story wasn’t accurate. People don’t give two hoots if I did, if I didn’t, what I did, what I didn’t do 30 years ago when I was 17 years old.”

He admitted to smoking marijuana as a teen but said the Globe story “absolutely B.S.”

The panel looked at recent Supreme Court decisions, media organizations’ internal codes of conducted and previous press council decisions to develop a three-part test for acceptable conduct by investigative reporters:

1. Was the story in the public interest?

2. Was due diligence done to verify the allegations?

3. Was sufficient notice given to the mayor so he had a reasonable opportunity to respond?

The panel ruled the Star met all three conditions.

“The Mayor is a senior public servant in a very important elected position. In that capacity he is appropriately subject to a greater level of scrutiny than if he was a private citizen,” stated the decision. “It is, therefore, in the public interest for media to report on his behaviour where that behaviour appears to be illegal and inappropriate, could impair the carrying out of duties, and involves alleged activity he himself has condemned.”

The Star story reported a broker was attempting to shop the video to media. The video, which also showed the mayor making homophobic and racist remarks, was viewed three times by Star reporters Kevin Donovan and Robyn Doolittle, and by the editor of U.S. online gossip site Gawker.

“Council is of the view that the Star reporters were thorough in analyzing the video and came to a reasonable conclusion in deciding that it was a video of Mayor Ford,” the decision states.

“The Council believes the Star’s reliance on the video as the primary evidence, the efforts it made to authenticate its contents and the decision to rely on anonymous sources to support the conclusions reached by the reporters, are all reasonable and credible in this case.

“Council does not agree with the position that the story could not be written unless the newspaper had the video in its possession or that it could not publish without naming its sources,” it stated.

“Given that the existence of the video had been made public by an on-line organization, Council agrees that the Star’s decision to publish in a timely fashion the results of their more extensive investigation into the matter was appropriate.”

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The council also found the Star gave the mayor adequate opportunity to respond.

“Because of the fulsome efforts it made that evening, and the fact that it did obtain and report on Mayor Ford’s denial of the allegations through his lawyer, the Council is of the view that the Star did meet the requirement of good investigative reporting that affords the subject of the story the opportunity to be informed and respond.”

Ford has since said he can’t comment on the video that he has “not seen or does not exist” and has said publicly he does not smoke crack cocaine.

In considering the public complaints, the panel was struck by the public’s lack of knowledge of journalistic standards, why they exist and the principles that lie behind them, said Thomson.

“Our sense was that those who sent in the complaints were talking one language and the newspapers were talking another,” he said.

Newspapers need to do a better job explaining and promoting their standards, he said, and the press council could do better as well.

“Part of our role is to make those standards better known and to produce decisions that help people understand what they mean.”

The decision was expected, said Ivor Shapiro, chair of Ryerson’s School of Journalism.

“It’s not a surprise the council would uphold pretty fundamental questions about the public interest and about what it means about reporters to verify a story, and what a reasonable opportunity to respond is. None of that is a surprise.”

The council made an important point regarding the fact the Star did not produce the video in question, Shapiro said.

“That wasn’t in the Star’s control. What was in the Star’s control was making a reasonable effort to verify they were seeing something that was genuine, that the person in the video was indeed the mayor, and described fully and clearly and accurately what the reporters saw. And that’s what reporters do.”

Paul Knox, professor and former chair of Ryerson’s School of Journalism, said he was personally wary of the press council proceedings because “it’s a sideshow in city politics.”

“The issue of the mayor’s conduct is not a sideshow.”

He supports how the stories were reported, Knox said.

“Both the Star and the Globe, I had no problem with the practices employed and the verification and the honesty with which they laid out for their readers what they knew and didn’t know. I thought it was very professionally done in both cases.”

“I was dismayed to see that a lot of Torontonians simply don’t believe these professional, experienced reporters.”

He hoped the ruling in the Star’s favour would “be a small step toward re-establishing that trust.”

During a tour of the new Ripley’s Aquarium facility on Wednesday, the mayor did not answer questions related to the press council decision, only shaking his head and saying “anything else?” when asked for comment by reporters.