Bob Trane suing The Somerville Journal

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

A friend e-mailed me this. It seems rather odd and childish. Bob Trane is suing the Somerville Journal over a cartoon? In my opinion, it does not send a good message about Trane, frankly. Comments?

Bob Trane suing The Somerville Journal

Comments

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

Well they also didnt run his full page ad that he prepaid for...thats a legal issue right there.

Two-pronged fork

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Bob's got a couple of different issues.

One, with CNC (the Journal's parent company) for mistakenly running the ad in the Cambridge Chronicle.

Two, with the Journal, for running the political comic in question. This is deliciously ironic. For someone who's been riding the dogsled of attack dogs known as the Somerville News as long as Trane has, for him to get this thin-skinned over a cartoon?

Jesus Christ, Bob, you're running *the* most ignoble campaign I've seen in local politics in the 17 years I've lived in Somervillle, and that includes Vinnie Ciampa's failure to denounce anti-homosexual fliers supporting him four years ago. This is embarassing.

The actual cartoon is on the Somerville Journal site.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to post the link, but I don't see how one can think of suing a newspaper for a cartoon and hope to win. Sounds like a silly publicity stunt.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

We should counter-sue him and whoever writes his press releases for the damage caused to us who read it. I will never recover the brain cells killed by this sentence: "Add to this that after weeks of printing paid advertising from the Trane Committee in the agreed to position and page in the Somerville Journal, the final Trane ad which was to have appeared in the Journal in the very edition of the paper where the libelous cartoon was printed failed to be printed."

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

To repeat a comment from above, this is the type of 'mistake' which cannot be repaired. The Journal can offer an apology, or a refund, however, because of the timing, neither can really repair the possible damage. Regardless, it is an error that is inexcusable for a newspaper to make, I don't care how it happened. And it further erodes the credibility that the Somerville Journal should have, but doesn't.
It is funny, though, that many comments are referring to the fact that Trane seems a little paranoid because he thinks it was done on purpose. It gives me pause, because when Sciortino lost his nomination papers he just about outright stated that Trane, or someone working on his behalf, had stolen them. Paranoid??? I think that some of the statments made at that time by Sciortino constituted slander, and Trane may have had a case, but did not pursue it. Perhaps an underlying reason for his alleged 'thin skin'?

Statehouse shenanigans

[samsdaddy.livejournal.com]

Having worked in the Statehouse (as a journalist, no less! and for CNC's prior owners too!), I can tell you that it's entirely plausible that someone lifted the papers in question from Sciortino's office. I'm not saying someone did, mind you, least of all accusing Trane, but I am saying that that building is a vipers' nest of intrigue, double-dealing and backstabbing of the highest order. Like the man said, "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

But setting that issue aside, the Journal has done Trane an egregious and irrevocable injury in failing to print his ad just a week before the election. I'm obviously biased here, as a former journalist, but to me it's the sacred duty of new outlets to be reliable, objective and impartial sources of information to readers/viewers/users. And I don;t think it's overstating the fact to say that our democracy depends on this.

In my view (and please note, I take no stand on who to vote for here), the Journal abrogated this responsibility, even though seemingly through a bureaucratic snafu. Trane can never get back the exposure the ad would have brought him at a crucial time in the election, which could affect the outcome today. To me, that is an inexcusable lapse. The Journal will have a long row to hoe to regain the credibility it's lost in the community.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

"According to Sciortino the remaining signatures were stolen from his State House sometime before May 6. Two judges refused to allow him on the ballot."
"In court, Sciortino’s lawyer Ed Colbert said Sciortino had 186 signatures....But before Sciortino could submit them to the Secretary of State, Colbert said, the papers had been stolen."
"The papers are missing,” (the judge) said. “We don’t have any information other than that they were on [Sciortino’s] desk and now they are not....”
"Sciortino reported the papers missing to the State Police on May 19, almost two weeks after he first noticed they were gone."
"According to Sciortino's attorney, 12 nomination papers containing 72 signatures were taken by an unknown person from his State House office."
I would personally have more respect for someone who stood up and simply admitted that they had been lost or misplaced. To immediately refer to them as 'stolen' is simply passing the buck for your own mistake (all candidates routinely copy the signatures immediately, why hadn't Sciortino at least done that?). And who, other than Trane, could be the purported thief? The inference is that it is his opponent.