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“Dirty George died last month. He was found in his apartment on his couch. He’d been dead a week. The coroner says it was a heart attack. That is the merest part of the story.”

By David Topping

It may only last the course of the day, but we thought it couldn’t be done: Rosie DiManno has been unseated as the Star‘s worst writer. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joe Fiorito.

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  • http://www.refresh-events.ca/ Justin Kozuch

    That was probably the most insensitive thing a reporter could say. Clearly, Mr. Fiorito has no respect for the dead, given the way he decided to sensationalize his article. Congrats Joe on being a far worse and far more inhumane writer than Rosie.

  • http://undefined unfamiliar_tide

    It may come across as insensitive, but most of our society is insensitive to issues like this. Joe hit the nail on the head with this opening paragraph.

  • http://null james a

    A lot of the Rosie DiManno stuff you’ve called out has been atrocious, but I have to disagree on this one.
    Maybe it’s just me, but I thought the whole article seemed quite thoughtful.

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    Ugh, if he cut the overwrought pulp novel drama writing by about two thirds, the article might be tolerable. Plus, that headline (“Apartment reeked of dying”) is the worst. The situation that George was in definitely warrants an article and public awareness, but I agree that this affected sensationalizing of it just comes across as insincere and disrespectful.

  • http://null Svend

    Should the government step in when someone can’t keep his apartment clean?

  • http://null JDurbs

    This story has everything:

    • animals (stuffed)
    • drama (“dark years of human stain”)
    • suspense (“I held my breath.”)
    • horror (“Bugs scurried from her on the floor as she spoke.”)
    • pathos (“powder-blue sports coat, drink in hand”)
    • a fight scene (fridge/stove guy)

    Hollywood magic!

  • http://www.publicspace.ca Jonathan Goldsbie

    It’s not a good article, but aside from the pulpy prose, I’m not sure if it’s fair to compare it to DiManno’s worst. DiManno is lurid for the sake of being lurid, taking other people’s tragedies and reducing them to one-dimensional characterizations that are invariably exploitative; she seems to view each crime as a literary challenge.
    The Fiorito article is different. The key sentence is “She asked if she might show me the apartment, so I could see what life in community housing is like.” While I agree that the article is worse for being overwrought, I really think he meant well; he was attempting to describe the squalor of TCHC housing, at the request of the man’s daughter, presumably for the precise purpose of painting such a visceral picture in the paper. Unlike DiManno, his aim isn’t to explain why a criminal deserves the harshest punishment imaginable, it’s to raise awareness of the conditions of the City’s housing stock and encourage change.

  • http://null senior

    Have you read Fiorito’s book, “Union Station?” It’s 250 pages of this schlock. Mickey Spillane doing the City section of the Toronto Star.

  • http://undefined David Toronto

    I’ve asked support care workers why they don’t step in and do something and they say that they are powerless until the person asks for help.
    I’ve seen instances of this in my building and it’s not a comfortable environment for the rest of us.
    The story is also about how the government and support networks fail those they are meant to support.
    There could have been a solution for George. Perhaps a community living arrangement with a drop-in social worker. In his case, maybe the others in the community could have broken George’s isolation and gotten through to him.
    When the mental health system was de-institutionalised in the 1960s, the problems were transferred to the local community. Out-patients simply had a welfare cheque, a telephone number for a social worker and the necessary prescriptions.
    In other words, the community failed the most vulnerable at the very beginning of their situation rather than work with them to an improved state–then releasing them into supervised communities, for a start.
    Rather a case of building a sand castle and not being mindful of the incoming tide and wondering the next day, what happened?

  • http://null Optimuscrime Toronto

    The headline is awful, but that’s an editor’s fault.
    I adore Joe Fiorito as a writer He loves this city and he loves the people in it. He gives a voice to citizens that we’d rather sidestep and ignore. His columns are narratives that often move me to tears.
    Would you prefer a clinical eye to these types of stories? Inverted pyramid-style reporting, cold and efficient?
    Sofi Papamarko

  • http://null MariaPD

    I have not read Union Station but I read The Song Beneath the Ice and, believe it or not, I quite enjoyed it. It shows an interesting picture of Toronto and has a good story.

  • http://undefined David Topping

    @Optimuscrime:
    “Would you prefer a clinical eye to these types of stories? Inverted pyramid-style reporting, cold and efficient?”
    No, and that’s really not what my complaint is (and I certainly don’t have any problems with Fiorito’s personal intent; you can have a good heart and still be a bad writer). I’m just not a big fan of shoving the worst characteristics of Hemingway, pulp fiction, and tearjerkers together to write articles.

  • http://undefined montauk

    I thought it was a student who wrote it maybe. The very short, jerking sentences and contrived-sounding descriptions. Also how does this guy know the difference between death smell and dying smell? Anyway, yes this is an issue that needs to be written about, but it sounds like a segment of Bart’s People from that Simpsons episode, except with worse writing style. That’s what gets me – not the sensationalizing, but the writing.
    “The writing was bad. The style was worse. Joe Fiorito sits on a couch, head in his hands. He is a good man. He is a proud man. But he is a broken man. He does not smell of life. He smells of life gone wrong. Tears seep through his fingers. Ants crawl in the puddle of tears on the floor. Through his pain they find water.”

  • http://null Vincent Clement

    Want to improve the quality of housing stock? Get rid of rent control and get the government out of the business of owning and managing housing stock.
    Government is spending over $1 billion to “fix” Regent Park. Part of the “fix” includes putting back in streets that were taken out, having dwellings face the street, just like the original houses Regent Park replaced and by having a mix of dwelling types and tenure.

  • http://null Blovertis

    You literati are missing the point. Fiorito is part of a long and grand tradition of hard-boiled but compassionate city columnists. Would you call Jimmy Breslin or Mike Royko “bad” writers? Do you think the article would have the same impact if Jeffery Simpson was describing that bedsit?
    DiManno can’t write (and she’s an idiot to boot) but Joe’s heart is in the right place and he knows exactly what he’s doing.

  • http://fleischmarket.blogspot.com/ David Fleischer

    It’s one of the merest articles I’ve read this week.
    And I’m.
    Not just saying that.
    Because of how Joe.
    Described.
    Dirty George’s death stink.
    Sorry, “Dying” stink.

  • http://null Dillon McManamy

    As a criticism David, may I say this.
    I see no difference between the Star posting a sensationalist headline and Torontoist reposting the same article with the the intent of sensationalizing a sensationalist headline.
    The article is by no means prize-worthy, but the journalist at least is presenting information to the public, all your doing here is using Torontoist as a soapbox to voice your own discontent with the quality of “competitor” media.
    Would it have been too much to expect TOist to present their perspective on the subject matter?

  • http://undefined rapi

    both fiorito and rosie have a personal style/mannerism…fiorito uses short, machine gun like sentences, very good impression rendered by montauk…as for rosie, i think she first writes a story in her own words and then goes to the dictionary of synonyms and replaces every word with the most unusual (…bizarre, ludicrous, curious, unfamiliar…) she can find…that being said, george belonged in an institution and someone, even his sister annie, could have DONE something about it…did i mention i can’t stand fiorito’s bleeding heart prose???

  • http://null Robsonian

    through his pain they find water.

  • http://null montauk

    You don’t get carte blanche on writing style just because you’re discussing an important issue. For example:
    “Here are my thoughts on AIDS in Africa. It is bad. Horrible. Half the continent smells of death. No. Of dying. There are many skinny people with suckling babies that smell of sickness. There are women baring their nipples. They weep for their little babies. Flies crawled over their babies as we spoke.”
    Is AIDS in Africa an important issue? Yes. But is this good writing? No. If you give a human rights issue that sort of spin, you turn it into suffering porn for the non-suffering to get misty-eyed about. I’m not advocating for clinical detachment, but that article had all the journalistic sensitivity of a dog rolling around in something rancid for the pure naughty pleasure of it.
    Anyway, where did this rule come from that you can’t complain about something unless you can churn out an example of yourself doing it better? Why don’t we hold ourselves to that standard? Where’s your article on poverty?
    Lastly, I don’t think Torontoist and the Toronto Star are in competition.

  • http://null Frank Mills

    Seriously? Have you read some of the crap posted on this website?

  • http://null JDurbs

    …Joe’s heart is in the right place…
    You mean on his sleeve?