After a Parkland, Fl., school victim’s father complained, the South Florida Sun Sentinel apologized for running a gun show ad at the bottom of Wednesday’s front page that featured two stories about shooting rampages, Politico reports. The Fort Lauderdale Gun Show ad on the front page stood out because of its presentation — a dark semiautomatic pistol and red letters on a yellow background — and because of its juxtaposition. The front page featured a large photo of mourning teens titled “Remembering Alyssa” that referred to the birthday of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School murder victim Alyssa Alhadeff. She would have turned 15 on Tuesday. Intensifying the contrast between the news and ad content was a story about a man pleading guilty in the 2017 mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale’s airport that left five people dead.
“Looks like the Sun Sentinel editor on this page failed. A story on the victims of gun violence and they put a gun coupon on the page. WTF!!!” wrote Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg was killed in the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre Feb. 14, on Twitter. An hour later, Sun Sentinel publisher Nancy Meyer published an apology and pledged a moratorium on gun advertising. “We deeply regret placement of a gun advertisement on our front page Wednesday morning. It is against our policy to run gun and other types of controversial advertising on our front page,” she wrote. “We understand how the juxtaposition of certain ads and news stories can appear extremely insensitive, and we failed to prevent such a juxtaposition today. We are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again, and the Sun Sentinel now has a moratorium on gun advertising.”