5 Feet of Fury

‘When I used to work in Hollywood (…) one of my jobs was to decide whether of not to recommend screenplays for production…’

Richard Klagsburn considers the TorStar/Rob Ford libel suit as a movie pitch:

WRITER: That’s right! I think every decent, social justice-seeking person in the audience is going to identify with the crusading newspaper and its heroic journalists!

ME: Interesting. The way I read it, in your story, the only people you’ve got siding with your newspaper are pompous douchebags and sanctimonious nitwits. But aside from that, we get to the most blatant problem with your story…

WRITER: Which is?

ME: Well, while this reporter is suing the mayor, he still is doing City Hall coverage for the newspaper.

WRITER: Yes, so?

ME: So? So that’s completely implausible. There’s no way a real newspaper could ever allow that to happen…