Toronto Mayor, vexed by cover illustration, orders NOW magazine copies destroyed

[This post has been updated] Municipal staff in Toronto have been instructed to search out and destroy all copies of NOW magazine from City Hall and all municipal facilities because it features an unflattering cover image of Mayor Rob Ford. An internal memorandum published by the magazine says the purge was ordered by the mayor's office.

The image for the cover story by Enzo Di Matteo, is clearly Photoshopped, and shows the mayor nude all-but nude with the main coverline "“The naked truth about Rob Ford.”".  

It's not clear whether it's just this particular issue, but all issues from now on.

“We are outraged”, says NOW Editor/CEO Alice Klein. “Rob Ford does not want Torontonians to know the naked truth”

“The only thing that is offensive is the way Rob and Doug Ford are running this city,” says NOW editor/publisher Michael Hollett. "The last mayor that tried to ban NOW Magazine was Mel Lastman and how well did his administration work out? The mayor refers to himself as "300 pounds of fun”, well, he’s 300 pounds but he’s sure no fun. We will fight Ford on this issue and all the others that we are certain makes Toronto less than the city we want it to be, less than the great city it can be.”

[Update: Rob Ford's office is now saying that this was all a "misunderstanding", that the mayor took the whole thing in good humour, that an overzealous staffer had merely enquired about the appropriateness of the distribution of the paper and city staff mistakenly ordered the removal and destruction of  the paper (leaving the impression that they should have known better.) On  the CBC Metro Morning program this morning, editor and publisher Michael Hollett said the statement from the mayor's office was mere "spin" and Hollett made no apologies for the way the story and image were presented. By the way, we used the term "nude" above. In the actual cover image, the visual mashup was wearing boxer shorts; inside, there was the image shown at the top of this post.]