Skipping the Chronicle's sham forum

By John Labriola - The Citrus County Chronicle recently invited me to participate in a candidate forum they are hosting for Inverness City Council candidates later this month. Despite being all too aware of the Chronicle's extreme liberal bias and lack of professionalism, I decided to accept their invitation on three conditions:

1. That a copy of the forum rules be provided to each of the candidates in advance

2. That the Chronicle apologize for repeatedly citing the Southern Poverty Law Center – a highly biased and thoroughly discredited anti-Christian hate group and smear operation – to label pro-family organizations like MassResistance and local critics of the LGBT grooming agenda as "hate groups." (See my earlier article HERE.) 

3. That the Chronicle issue a retraction and apology for its defamatory Aug. 31 article in which it falsely reported that I lied on my candidate filing paperwork by claiming I still work for a former employer. (The Chronicle was too incompetent to notice that the financial disclosure form I submitted asked for income sources from 2021, when I was still working for that employer. The Chronicle's reporter Fred Hiers actually went to the trouble of calling my former employer to "prove" I wasn't working there anymore, so he obviously had the time to contact me as any ethical reporter would do before filing his sloppy hit piece, but he didn't bother.)

Ethics in journalism calls for newspapers to issue retractions when their reporting proves to be false and/or defamatory, but the Chronicle has proven time and again that it has no regard for journalistic ethics and is only interested in pushing its leftist agenda, the truth be damned. So I wasn't surprised when the Chronicle's executive editor Jeff Bryan rejected my conditions without any explanation.

Therefore, I won't be participating, and I encourage all Inverness voters to join me in boycotting the Chronicle's rigged forum. Voters don't need the Chronicle's biased filter to analyze their choices at the ballot box. The questions candidates answer should be those on voters' minds, not those of some biased Chronicle moderator who doesn't share this community's values or concerns. 

I have personally made myself very accessible to voters in person, via email and phone, and on my facebook campaign page at facebook.com/John4Inverness. I've also accepted invitations to participate in several past and future unfiltered forums for Citrus County candidates, including at the Crystal Oaks Clubhouse on Oct. 5 at 6:15 p.m. and at the Citrus Springs Community Center on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. I hope all the other candidates are making themselves equally accessible, because the voters deserve no less.


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