(the following is a press release received this morning)

Trane State Representative Campaign To Pursue Legal Options Against Somerville Journal

The Bob Trane for State Representative Committee (34^th Middlesex District) has begun the process of pursuing legal action against the Somerville Journal for a cartoon it ran in its Thursday, September 11, 2008 edition. Additionally, the Somerville Journal did not run a full page Trane advertisement in the important last pre-primary edition. The Trane advertisement had been prepaid by the Trane campaign and had run for the previous three (3) weeks in the Somerville Journal.

According to the campaign and its attorney’s, the cartoon strongly and unambiguously implies that Mr. Trane was somehow involved in the loss or disappearance of the nomination papers of his opponent for State Representative, a candidate whom the paper has endorsed. The defamatory cartoon combined with the Somerville Journal‚Äôs refusal to run a prepaid advertisement collectively evidence a purposeful malice intended to injure Mr. Trane‚Äôs reputation and negatively impact his campaign for State Representative.

Attorney John Harrington, legal counsel to the campaign said, “The Somerville Journal has defamed Mr. Trane, a current Somerville Alderman, by implying that he committed a crime and the result is that Mr. Trane’s candidacy has been irretrievably injured, and further, Mr. Trane’s personal reputation is held by the Somerville Journal to scorn, hatred, ridicule and contempt in the minds of the community. The publication of the scurrilous cartoon has obviously damaged Mr. Trane’s reputation. Given that there is not one scintilla of evidence connecting Mr. Trane to the disappearance of Mr. Sciortino’s nomination papers there can be no conclusion other than the Somerville Journal intentionally and with malice maligned Mr. Trane. We will vigorously pursue all legal remedies available to Mr. Trane.”

At no time has Mr. Trane’s name ever been connected to the lost documents and, in fact, his opponent recently sent out a district wide mailing admitting his personal responsibility for his nomination signatures failing to be appropriately submitted on time.

For the Somerville Journal to have allowed the publication of a cartoon, just days before the vote, that connects Mr. Trane to the actions of a disgraced public official, is both outrageous and unfair. To have also deliberately done so in it’s last edition before the primary, thereby denying Mr. Trane the opportunity to confront and refute this scurrilous lie in the same pages where it appears, is journalism at its very worst and most despicable. 

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.

Any unaffiliated, fair minded individual would see these separate actions by the Somerville Journal for what they were, a blatant attempt by the newspaper to both deny Mr. Trane access to voters through the failure to print his final advertisement, as well as to unfairly besmirch the reputation and character of a citizen whose only sin was his willingness to take on a political insider.

The Trane Committee will pursue its legal rights so that in the future no other candidate will find themselves similarly smeared with no ability to respond. Fairness and truth dictate that no publication use its power not simply to endorse, which is their right, but to unfairly distort and destroy, which no one has the right to do.

Bob Trane is the only Democrat on the September 16^th primary ballot.