The South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday apologized for running a gun show ad below a story related to a mass shooting story on its front page, Politico reports.
The story, titled "Remembering Alyssa," was about Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School murder victim Alyssa Alhadeff, who would have turned 15 on Tuesday.
"It's a mess. It's horrible," Julie Anderson, the Sun Sentinel's editor in chief, told the Miami New Times. "We're taking every step possible to make sure our editorial staff always see ads before publication so something like this doesn't slip through."
The newspaper circulates in the city of Parkland, where Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured at least 14 when he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Douglas high school Feb. 14.
The ad featured a photo of a semiautomatic pistol between the words "Ft. Lauderdale" and "Show," which were printed in red letters on a yellow background. The ad was also featured under another story about the guilty plea of a mass shooter who killed five people at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in January of 2017.
In her statement, publisher Nancy Meyer said, "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.
"We understand how the juxtaposition of certain ads and news stories can appear extremely insensitive, and we failed to prevent such a juxtaposition [Wednesday]. We are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again, and the Sun Sentinel now has a moratorium on gun advertising."
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