Somerville Alderman Bob Trane, who lost to state Rep. Carl Sciortino (LA '00) in a primary contest last week, is pursuing legal action against the Somerville Journal for publishing a cartoon that his campaign described as "outrageous and unfair."
The cartoon, published in the newspaper's Sept. 11 edition, suggests that Trane stole signatures from Sciortino's campaign. The Sciortino campaign says the signatures went missing this summer.
Sciortino, the two-term incumbent in the 34th Middlesex District, ran a write-in campaign after the lost papers kept him from appearing on the ballot; Trane was the only candidate listed. Sciortino alleges that the signatures were stolen from the Statehouse but has not blamed Trane.
The Trane campaign insists that its loss in the election will not stop it from suing the newspaper. In the Journal's cartoon, the word "Trane" is crossed out and replaced with "someone" in a sentence that reads, "Someone is alleged to have stolen Sciortino's nomination signatures." The image also shows a voter writing in "Mr. Right" on his ballot.
In addition to running the cartoon, the Somerville Journal also failed to print a prepaid, full-page advertisement from the Trane campaign on Sept. 15, the day before the primary.
"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," Trane's campaign said in a press release. "The defamatory cartoon combined with the Somerville Journal's refusal to run a prepaid advertisement collectively evidenced a purposeful malice intended to injure Mr. Trane's reputation and negatively impact his campaign for state representative."
Greg Reibman, editor-in-chief of the Somerville Journal, said that the cartoon and the advertising mistake were unrelated incidents. "I understand how [the Trane campaign] could think they could be connected, but they're not," he told the Daily.
Reibman attributed the paper's omission of the ad to a random mistake in the advertising department. The paper has apologized and refunded the campaign.
As for the cartoon, Reibman maintained that as a part of the Op-Ed page, the ideas it expressed were "totally independent from the paper."
"It was solely the opinion of our editorial cartoonist," he said.
The cartoonist, 81-year-old Somerville resident David Omar White, said he drew the cartoon because of the way Trane reacted to the disappearance of Sciortino's signatures.
"Bob Trane should have turned away suspicions that would lie in his lap by advocating that Mr. Sciortino be allowed to recover those signatures, but he didn't," White said. "People did suspect him of shenanigans."
White, who has been supplying the paper with cartoons for about two months but does not receive payment for his work, expressed some regret.
"I was pretty rough on [Trane], and in a way, I'm kind of sorry I was that rough," he said.
While White said he "didn't actually accuse him of stealing," Trane's attorney, John Harrington, feels the implication was enough to justify legal recourse.
"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," he said in the Trane campaign's press release. "We will vigorously pursue all legal remedies available to Mr. Trane."
The Trane campaign said it will be filing a complaint in the coming weeks.
As of right now, the Somerville Journal has not had any contact with campaign members.
"We haven't seen anything other than a press release," Riebman said.
Sciortino, who recently assumed personal responsibility in a district-wide mailing for failing to submit his signatures on time, won approximately 55 percent of the vote in the primary.
That's up from the 47 percent predicted in the hours following the election.
Trane's campaign insists the defeat will not affect the lawsuit. "We intend to see it through until the end," said Melissa Hurley, Trane's press secretary.
