Blogging on Breakfast Television Edmonton!

This post is coming to you this morning from the BT Edmonton studios downtown on Jasper Avenue. This week has been Bloggers Week on BT, and I’m thrilled to be closing it out! This is the third time I’ve been the “blogger in residence” – the first was in 2010, and I kicked off Bloggers Week last year. It’s always fun to hang out with Ryan, Bridget, and the rest of the gang, and being a media junkie I love getting a behind-the-scenes look.

Yesterday Ryan interviewed Mayor Mandel in the kitchen in what turned out to be the story of the day. Mandel was very candid with this opinion on Councillor Diotte, who announced late in the afternoon that he will run for mayor in the fall election. Here’s the video:

Another big topic of discussion in the studio this morning is the Gawker story that Toronto mayor Rob Ford smokes crack cocaine:

Rob Ford, Toronto’s conservative mayor, is a wild lunatic given to making bizarre racist pronouncements and randomly slapping refrigerator magnets on cars. One reason for this is that he smokes crack cocaine. I know this because I watched him do it, on a videotape. He was fucking hiiiiigh. It’s for sale if you’ve got six figures.

Pretty strong accusation and a number of media outlets are treading carefully with their coverage. Apparently Rogers legal has informed the Breakfast Television crews across the country that they shouldn’t talk about Rob Ford and the crack cocaine scandal.

One of the things Ryan and I talked about was this week’s big arena news. We touched on some of the outstanding questions that I think we as Edmontonians need to start looking at in more detail. Then Dave Cournoyer joined me at 7:10am to chat about who else might be running for mayor. The three of us agreed that we don’t think Mandel will run again, and Dave and I shared our thoughts on Iveson, Sohi, Leibovici, and other potential candidates for the big chair.

Today’s musical guest was the Bay City Rollers who are in town for a show this weekend. Everyone was bobbing their head to Saturday Night, Saturday Night! Fun fact: they just sang, no instruments actually were played. In fact, the studio guys had to get something to silence the drum kit so the drummer could hit the drums!

I was able to quickly plug tonight’s Truck Stop: Ginger Beef Throwdown, taking place from 5-8pm at the Royal Alberta Museum. Four trucks, four ginger beef-inspired dishes, you decide who goes home with bragging rights. Hope to see you there! I also got to touch on the Yeggies and some of the amazing content producers that we have here in Edmonton. Ryan asked me to mention one you might not know about, so check out The Wanderer Online if you haven’t already!

At 8:40am, newly announced mayoral candidate Kerry Diotte was in studio for an interview with Ryan. He took the high road in response to the Mayor’s comments and focused on some of the challenges he sees (such as our debt load). I had a good chat with him off-camera, and he sounded upbeat and ready for a long, hard campaign.

The crew in the studio is always so friendly and accommodating. Thanks Dale, Greg, and Phil!

I’ll leave you with a small blast from the past. Here’s a segment I did with Ryan on BT back in 2010 on social media – it’s what got Ryan tweeting!

Thanks to Ryan and everyone else at BT Edmonton for having me on the show today, it was fun!