TORONTO, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- The Toronto Star played by the rules in a story about a video that showed Toronto Mayor Rob Ford apparently smoking crack, a press watchdog said Wednesday.
The Ontario Press Council dismissed complaints against the Star, ruling it followed "appropriate journalistic guidelines," the newspaper reported.
The council, which held a hearing in September, said the story was in the public interest. It also found Star reporters were thorough in their analysis of the video and sought the mayor's response before the story was published.
The newspaper did not need to possess the video to write about it, the council said.
Ford made racist and homophobic slurs on the video, the newspaper reported. Ford denies smoking crack and has suggested the video does not actually exist.
"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," the ruling said.
