Second-year student, Steve Pathmanathan, stands beside a TTC Kennedy station sign.  Pathmanathan, 21, says that fear of Scarborough is generally unwarranted. Scarborough has a lower per capita crime rate than North York or Etobicoke. City councillors Norm Kelly and Michael Thompson say the media have perpetuated this fear by overusing the term Scarborough when reporting on crime. (Chris Richardson/ Special to the Ryersonian)

Special to The Ryersonian

Second-year history student Steve Pathmanathan takes the subway north with a group of friends after class. They discuss their homework and their plans for the weekend, then Pathmanathan heads east at Bloor station. None of his classmates dare come to the end of the line with him, he says.

For many Ryerson students, the half-hour ride to Kennedy station and the switch onto the rapid transit service to the Scarborough Town Centre might as well be a ride to Compton in California or Harlem in New York — both infamous for being rough neighbourhoods.

In fact, many Ryerson students jokingly refer to Scarborough as “Scompton” or “Scarlem.”

It’s an unwarranted fear, says Pathmanathan. And one that’s been the talk of city officials and media critics since the proposal of two Scarborough councillors earlier this year.

Councillors Norm Kelly and Michael Thompson unsuccessfully tried to get the media to hold back on using the term “Scarborough” specifically when reporting on crime. The councillors claim that when crimes happen in other areas, intersections are more often to indicate locations.

The message they were trying to get across was a simple one: Scarborough isn’t such a bad place. It has a smaller per capita crime rate than North York or Etobicoke. It’s full of rich cultural groups and, yes, Scarborough even has some of Toronto’s most beautiful sites.

The Scarborough Bluffs provide a scenic view of Lake Ontario and the sailboats that pepper the horizon in the summer. And the vast, green landscape of Rouge Valley on the eastern edge of Scarborough is one of North America’s largest urban parks.

But that’s not the impression people get from media, argue Kelly and Thompson.

Pathmanathan agrees. “If you tell anyone you’re from Scarborough,” he says, “the immediate implication is, ‘Wow, you’re from a bad neighbourhood.’”

The 21-year-old recalls making arrangements to attend a party with a friend from Ryerson last year. He was asked to go to the border of Scarborough and Markham to be picked up. “(The friend) was afraid of getting his car jacked!” exclaims Pathmanathan in disbelief. “The media portrays us as a negative part of the city but, in fact, we’re not.”

The area, which joined Toronto in the amalgamation of 1998, even boasts of having been home to celebrities such as Mike Myers, “Will and Grace’s” Eric McCormack and the Barenaked Ladies.

The complaint, however, is that reporters only mention Scarborough when crimes are committed. Recently, Mayor David Miller spoke out about it, telling reporters, “There’s a perception out there that Scarborough is all about crime . . . I’m not sure the media is even aware that they’re doing it.”

Citytv’s Dwight Drummond says he’s known about the complaints of Scarborough residents for a long time. “People use ‘Scarborough’ when they could be using ‘Pharmacy and Eglinton.’ We don’t do that here,” says the on-air crime reporter and graduate of Ryerson’s radio and television arts program. “I think, overall, we don’t do a bad job . . . we’re people who care about the city. But I definitely know where they’re coming from.”

Other media personalities haven’t been so open to residents’ criticisms.

The Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno wrote a sarcastic commentary in January titled, “A cheeky look at the rump of Toronto.” In it, she calls “Scarberia” a “generic descriptor for urban blandness verging on blight.”

A National Post article asked why, instead of improving conditions in Scarborough, councillors wanted to simply not refer to “crimes committed in Scarborough as ‘crimes committed in Scarborough.’”

Mike Strobel at The Toronto Sun put it bluntly with his line: “The next time someone gets shot in, ahem, Scarborough pretend it happened somewhere else, just as Norm Kelly wants you to do.”

Councillors proposed news outlets should sign a “media protocol,” but none did and the idea was struck down in January.

Though the use of Scarborough may be overzealously used in the news, the city’s executive committee decided it wasn’t going to become a censor. “It’s not city council’s role to tell the media how to do their job,” announced the mayor afterwards.

Editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star, Fred Kuntz, says it’s not as simple as telling reporters to be nicer to Scarborough. “It can be very anecdotal to say, ‘oh the media present crime this way.’ You have to understand the underlying feeling: it’s frustration. It’s easy to blame the messenger.”

Kuntz says it’s important to “look at all the facets and cover the complexity of any community.” He’s trying to ensure that positive stories get equal attention. Kuntz also admits that there’s room for improvement. “The media dishes out a lot of criticism. We have to be able to take it too . . . I think we can always do a better job. This is not utopian. It’s not perfection.

Despite the bad press, fourth-year business student Dale Glover says he never hesitates to tell colleagues he’s from Scarborough. He’s gotten strange looks from people and the occasional joke about whether or not he carries a gun. But it doesn’t bother Glover. “A lot of people from outside think it’s bad, but everyone that lives here knows that there’s nothing bad about it.”

A scenic view of the Scarborough Bluffs which border the shorline of Lake Ontario.  The escarpment stretches for about 14 kilometres and rises 65 metres above the water. (Nicole Girardin/Ryersonian Staff)