FROM THE OSCEOLA NEWS-GAZETTE
The Osceola News-Gazette would like to take this opportunity to address its readers and clarify a few things with regards to last week’s page 3 political advertisement.
The week prior to that Oct. 20 full-page advertisement, the Osceola News-Gazette ran a story regarding a disciplinary report it obtained from 2010 about district 4 School Board candidate Will Fonseca and his resignation from the Kissimmee Police Department. The following week, Fonseca paid for a fullpage advertisement, per his request. The entire ad was created and paid for by his campaign, including an article that created some confusion with our readers.
The Osceola News-Gazette did not write the article on “Dark Money” and was not responsible for any of the content on the page.
Unfortunately, later in the week after the print version circulated, we became aware of organizations circulating mass text messages using our masthead (logo), an absolute infringement on our trademark. One included a manipulated version, using parts of the paid ad, placing our logo above it so as to make it look like we wrote the article, what we deemed an act of deception.
We took necessary steps, such as contacting candidates Fonseca and Heather Kahoun, and notifying individuals to cease and desist immediately.
As a newspaper, we strive to be fair, balanced, and factual in our reporting. We continually have the difficult task of giving all points of view and all sides of stories, and weigh heavily on how and when we do so, even if or when not all sides can be represented.
Allowing a political ad to run in no way shows our support or non-support for any candidate. We do not endorse candidates at this newspaper. We will, however, accept political ads as do other forms of media.
We want to assure our readers that we never purposefully intended to misinform our audience. We apologize if the perception was contrary, but we want our readers to know that we value you and your readership.
