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CP24 is the Jerry Springer of news

In TV land, it’s the definition of winning.

All sorts of media outlets here and abroad picked up CP24’s Nathan Downer’s testy exchange with Mike Tyson last week. The episode was “trending” online.

Tyson’s bit of made-for-TV drama was likely celebrated as a good day for the station since it made “news” in Toronto’s saturated and intensely competitive media market.

But whatever credibility the largely rip-and-read all-news channel enjoyed evaporated when it welcomed Tyson, not-so-fresh from a visit with Mayor Rob Ford, into its Queen West studios. Turns out, CP24 is the Jerry Springer of news.

In TV land, the need to attract eyeballs is apparently so fierce, that even unrepentant rapists are offered time on the air to promote themselves. In Tyson’s case, it was his one-man show at the Air Canada Centre, The Undisputed Truth.

For producers, Tyson is television gold: an eccentric softie, with a high-pitched voice, silver-toothed smile and an uplifting message of redemption.

But the CP24 interview didn’t last long. The softie promptly turned nasty when Downer asked Tyson whether a “convicted rapist” endorsing the mayor “could hurt [Ford’s] campaign.”

“You come across like a nice guy, but you’re really a piece of shit,” Tyson said.

“Hey, come on,” Downer replied, leaning back slightly.

“Fuck you. That was a piece of shit,” Tyson said.

“We’re on live TV,” Downer complained.

Then, Tyson’s media-abetted “nice-guy” persona vanished completely.

“I don’t care. What are you going to do about it?”

Chastised and perhaps concerned for his safety, Downer quickly tacked to change the subject, but it didn’t work. Tyson let fly with a string of shits and fucks.

With that, Downer ended the interview.

Right on cue, much of the media rushed to Downer’s defence, placing a big, black hat on Tyson’s head.

Kevin Frankish, the co-host of CityTV’s Breakfast Television, tweeted that Downer “stayed classy” while Tyson “is a bit of a baby.”

Others, including the CBC’s Matt Galloway and The Toronto Sun’s Lorrie Goldstein, also defended Downer, tweeting that he simply did his job by asking Tyson the prickly question that sparked his outburst.

“You don’t have to like Downer’s questioning of Tyson. That’s not the issue. The issue is he wouldn’t have done his job if he hadn’t asked it,” Goldstein wrote.

They miss the point. The sordid fact that appears lost on Frankish et al is the irresponsible act by so-called journalists at CP24 who abandoned any measure of news judgment in the pursuit of ephemeral ratings. We now know that CP24’s editorial standards can be reduced to: It’s show time.

For his part, Downer took to Twitter to reassure his followers that he was fine in a message dotted with enough misspellings to make you wonder if he really was. He apologized “for the language.”

Downer and CP24 don’t owe thinking viewers an apology for Tyson’s rather limp profanity. Rather, they should apologize for their decision to give Tyson a forum to pad his pocketbook.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

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