Joey Coleman was often the only reporter at Hamilton Ontario City Hall: a one-man digital newsroom, funded by his audience. His constant presence irritated a city councillor, who lost his temper and got physical. Joey didn't fight back, but he was the one punished: through a series of retaliations he was pushed out of the building and his news coverage became impossible. He joins Jesse to tell his story.
Joey Coleman was often the only reporter at Hamilton Ontario City Hall: a one-man digital newsroom, funded by his audience. His constant presence irritated a city councillor, who lost his temper and got physical. Joey didn’t fight back, but he was the one punished: through a series of retaliations he was pushed out of the building and his news coverage became impossible. He joins Jesse to tell his story.
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Notes:
In the early evening of Feb 26th 2014, Coleman and Ferguson exchange
TweetsVideo of the in-council incident occurring that same day On Feb 27th 2014, Andrew Dreschel, city columnist for the Hamilton Spectator,
Tweets a description of the incident. He later writes
this opinion piece on Mar 7th 2014.
One year later, on Feb 25 2015, the
Basse Report is added as a “walk-on” and
passed (the Council votes at 3:17). They accept findings of eavesdropping.
Integrity Commissioner’s report on the incident On Feb 26 2015, Ferguson complains report didn’t fully clear him and Basse
calls the media to back Ferguson up
On Feb 27th 2015, Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin Tweets his criticisms of the report
On Feb 27th 2015, Basse speaks with Spectator columnist Andrew Dreschel, saying he has a gut “
feeling” about Coleman
On Mar 2nd 2015, Clr. Merulla
promises a motion to correct the shortcomings of Basse Report
On Mar 3 2015, the Spectator
calls on the Council to not Sanction Ferguson and not reconsider the Basse Report
On Mar 4 2015, Ferguson
apologizes to Council. Council now stands by Basse Report and Ferguson declares himself “
vindicated“
From the editorial: “For some politicians distracting the public with what is actually a minor dust up between an aggressive media person and a haggard politician serves the purpose of hiding the escalating problems of this council. “
Video of Brad Clark speaking about the incident from The Push, a documentary by Cody Lanktree. The beautiful velvet rope that a City Clerk placed to restrict access to the Council Chamber. Deputy Clerk Janet Pilon informed Coleman that this was to prevent further “eavesdropping” as per the Basse Report
The passage violated by Coleman: Unless prior written permission is obtained from the City, the Content’s owner and the City’s licensors, You may not reproduce, publish, copy, link to, frame, tag, embed, merge, modify, recompile, license, distribute, sell, store in an electronic retrieval system, download (except by the browser of a single user) or transmit, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means whatsoever, be they physical, electronic or otherwise, the Portal and/or the Content.
The RSS feed shared by Coleman 
