Monday June 30 2008 - 17:08 hrs

At some point while working on a big story, you might find yourself in a situation akin to that of a latter day Columbus, discovering the New World.

And when the locals point out that the new world had always been there, or when they suggest that it strains credulity that that plain facts could have been invisible to even the simplest fool, your best move is to stop talking and walk away.

But when a source essentially tells you that the root of all the activity you have been examining is right under your lens, only you’ve been too blind to see it, then you can’t walk away.  You have to make immediate plans for how you are going to cover that part of the story that you have been missing to date.

Because the facts don’t always just sit still and wait for you to take a photograph. The facts don’t wait for you to find a blank release form for them to read, and a pen for them to sign it with.  The facts tell you how it’s is, and how it’s going to be.  And only a fool ignores the facts.

I am discovering that the best thing an investigative reporter can do, is ask questions of the right people.  In this way, the facts may be uncovered from amongst the weeds of rumour and the mulch of decaying memories.

redacted proves his worth in gold today when he tells me that the developers who are building the Portland Street RIO*CAN project, are billeted in the Burroughs Building, which is located just across from his bedroom window.

I’d been inside the Burroughs Building before, when I crashed the meeting for property owners that had been convened by Councillor Adam Vaughan, following the fire.

I remembered how many familiar faces had been in the room, from the local business community.

I remembered how there had been a phalanx of uniformed senior brass from the Toronto Police Service, and the Fire Department, and elsewhere.  These men had clustered near the recessed door, and when I loudly asked if recording devices were permitted, the shortest one, closest to me had said in a friendly but firm voice, no.  Then he offered that he didn’t know who had let the press in here.

And the press had been there, a phalanx clustered at the back of the room, but not so far back as the senior uniforms.  They had better tripods than I knew about, and more impressive cameras that they were already using to shoot videotape.  But at the time I was certainly being investigated in connection with a major fire, which was the subject of this very meeting.  

And so I had decided not to videotape inside the Burroughs Building.

But now here was a veritable challenge to invade the Burroughs Building, because people inside the Burroughs Building were invading us, and had posted the location of their outpost, on a giant sign for all to see.