It's absolutely true that the Toronto Star has a bit of a vendetta against Ford. They write a lot of attacking articles, they intentionally use "bad" photos of the Mayor, and they pretty much disagree on every one of his decisions. It started before he "banned" them from interviews but the justification for refusing to be interviewed by one of the two major Toronto papers was questionable by the Mayor in the first place.
I think what you have on the other side though is a Mayor who has been equally vindictive with his "enemies". And I use enemies in quotations because it seems like anyone who doesn't agree to everything that he says, is deemed to be an enemy. Guys who voted with him the majority of the time were ridiculed and threatened for not voting for Subways. The Toronto Medical officer was threatened and had his professional abilities called into question for an 'anti-car' statement.
And thestar was banned for writing anti-Ford pieces.
I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility that Ford recognized who was outside, knew he was a part of the Toronto Star and went on the agressive knowing that it was going to turn into a he-said-she-said argument. Those kinds of arguments tend to not sway either side. The people who like Ford/don't like the stance of the star are going to side with the Mayor, and those that don't like Ford are going to side with the paper.
I think there are some legitimate concerns that come out of these repeated encounters however. When Mary Walsh did that stupid Xena Warrior Princess thing earlier in the year, Ford ran inside and called the police a million times. But when a person is spying over his fence after 7PM he suddenly runs out to confront the person (unarmed and without calling the police?) That seems highly suspicious to me when someone acts significantly different under somewhat similar circumstances.
I don't like Rob Ford mostly for how he goes about his business, but I also don't really care for his policies so I freely admit my biases against him. But I really don't care for the Toronto Star either. I find them to be very much a shill piece paper that barely manages to keep its head above the Toronto level of quality.
Both sides are very guilty of engaging is a childish peeing contest. We should expect WAY more impartial journalistic integrity from the Star, but I find it downright scary that this kind of character is in charge of the kind of budget/responsibilities of the city of Toronto and beyond that, how it reflects on Ontario and Canada as a whole (you don't have to look too far back to find a good number of international people who think Toronto is the capital of Canada).
