Mayor Rob Ford’s executive committee has unanimously shelved a motion that would have stopped Ford and his staff from withholding official communications from media outlets they don’t like.

Councillor Adam Vaughan’s “free press and democracy” motion would have prohibited city employees and politicians from excluding any specific journalist or news outlet from any “media conference,” “media event” or news release.

Vaughan told executive committee members that his motion was not specifically about Ford’s relations with the Star. Ford’s office does not send releases or notices of events to the newspaper, rarely answers questions from it, and has excluded its reporters from background briefings.

Ford started to freeze out the Star as a mayoral candidate in July 2010 after it published a story about a confrontation between him and a high school football player he was coaching. Ford says the article was false, and he seeks a front-page apology.

“Politicians should not regulate the media, period,” said Vaughan, a former TV reporter. “It’s an issue of the free press and the minute you have the government deciding who is and is not a legitimate journalist, you no longer have a free press ... ”

“To pick and choose who we wish to participate in a free and open debate, that, I put to you, is reprehensible.”

David Nickle, president of the City Hall press gallery, spoke in support of the motion, arguing each news outlet has its own constituency and public institutions have a duty not to restrict public information to them.

“When you cut out one of those groups from basic information — and we’re just talking basic information — then you’re really cutting out that segment of Torontonians,” said the reporter for Toronto Community News.

Ford did not speak, although at one point he leaped from his chair and paced, shaking his head. His council allies argued it’s unnecessary to craft city policy to address a dispute between a politician and a news outlet, and worried about the logistics of giving “tweeters and bloggers” equal access to information.

Vaughan’s motion “is to try to resolve a particular circumstance. I don’t believe that it’s up to this committee to order either party to decide what they should or shouldn’t be doing,” said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who moved the successful deferral motion.

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said “it’s not our position to tell any member of council to deal with a certain media if they don’t feel like dealing with them.

“But I think that in the best interests of all concerned, particularly the readers of the newspaper and the citizens of Toronto, that it would be better if this problem were solved.”

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