Cloud Nine Entertainment Inc. and its online newspapers are a community-focused lifestyle brand and new online media product, delivering content to over 8 million people worldwide through email publications, website content, and social media platforms. We provide communities in SW Florida, Lakeland, Florida, and the Tri-City Area in Tennessee with everything they need to know to start their day.
Mission Statement
Lakeland Gazette “Where local always matter’s”
Our mission is to publish a distinguished and profitable community newspaper. Among our overall goals are:
To publish a community newspaper whose focus will be excellence in terms of news and advertising content, reproduction, and customer service.
To maximize profits consistent with product quality, but in no case less than required to assure long-term growth and our editorial independence.
To be fundamentalists in our support of the public right to know; and the right of free speech and press.
And to provide aggressive and visionary leadership.
This mission will be accomplished through the teamwork of professionals who are dedicated to truth, integrity, loyalty, quality, and hard work. We believe that a community must first know about itself in order to act in its own best interest.
We believe that a strong newspaper builds a strong community
The principles that the staff, editorial board, and corporation of the Lakeland Gazette should operate on are:
- To assertively seek content that has high interest, impacts the reader, provokes discussion, and advances the reader’s knowledge.
- To react quickly to any newsworthy events, around Lakeland or in another part of the world (if it impacts our readers).
- To make the products as relevant to readers as possible by knowing what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen in the news and our community.
- To create a product that is a reflection of the diversity of the backgrounds, goals and interests of the readers and the community.
- To consistently adhere to the highest ethical guidelines and foster the most professional environment possible at all levels.
- To develop and promote student journalists through a school mentoring program.
DIVERSITY STATEMENT
The Lakeland Gazette recognizes that a commitment to diversity is crucial to fulfilling its mission to be the primary source of information for, by, and about the Lakeland community. Embracing the cultural traditions, beliefs, and views of our subjects and audience strengthens this mission.
In upholding our mission to provide full, fair news coverage, the Lakeland Gazette will:
- Recognize that majority groups usually have little trouble sharing their views, but that underrepresented groups do not often share that position. Therefore, the Lakeland Gazette must be committed to aggressively covering underrepresented groups to the best of its abilities.
- This does not necessarily mean running more stories about “minority” issues and people. These stories are important, but underrepresented groups have a stake in “mainstream” stories too.
- Reporters should be conscious of sourcing: Avoid making someone the single spokesperson for an entire group or community. This usually originates from needing an authoritative source, like a club leader, to talk about an event. That person becomes the go-to source for stories about issues faced by a particular group, but reporters should be aggressive about collecting sources from a wide variety of people in the community.
- Avoid stereotyping and typecasting. Racism, sexism, and any other reporting that demeans others will not be tolerated. Furthermore, no mention should be made of a person’s race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, or other identities unless it is pertinent to a story.
- This is especially important to note in crime stories and suspect descriptions. It may be appropriate to include racial identification if a suspect description includes other descriptors.
- Create an open atmosphere within our own newsroom that welcomes a variety of views and encourages discussion.
Cloud Nine Entertainment Inc
Lakeland Florida 33804
Copyright © 2019- 2025 Cloud Nine Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
For more information contact us at[email protected]
Lakeland Gazette Accessibility Statement
Updated: Aug 2025
General
Lakeland Gazette strives to ensure that its services are accessible to people with disabilities. Lakeland Gazette has invested a significant amount of resources to help ensure that its website is made easier to use and more accessible for people with disabilities, with the strong belief that every person has the right to live with dignity, equality, comfort, and independence.
Accessibility on Lakelandgazette.info
Lakelandgazette.info makes available the UserWay Website Accessibility Widget that is powered by a dedicated accessibility server. The software allows Lakelandgazetee.info to improve its compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1).
Enabling the Accessibility Menu
The Lakelandgazette.info accessibility menu can be enabled either by hitting the tab key when the page first loads or by clicking the accessibility menu icon that appears on the corner of the page. After triggering the accessibility menu, please wait a moment for the accessibility menu to load in its entirety.
Disclaimer
Lakeland Gazette continues its efforts to constantly improve the accessibility of its site and services in the belief that it is our collective moral obligation to allow seamless, accessible, and unhindered use also for those of us with disabilities.
In an ongoing effort to continually improve and remediate accessibility issues, we also regularly scan Lakelandgazetee.info with UserWay’s Accessibility Scanner to identify and fix every possible accessibility barrier on our site.
Despite our efforts to make all pages and content on Lakelandgazetee.info fully accessible, some content may not have yet been fully adapted to the strictest accessibility standards. This may be a result of not having found or identified the most appropriate technological solution.
Here For You
If you are experiencing difficulty with any content on Lakelandgazette.info or require assistance with any part of our site, please contact us during normal business hours as detailed below and we will be happy to assist.
Contact Us
If you wish to report an accessibility issue, have any questions, or need assistance, please contact Lakeland Gazette Customer Support as follows:
Email: [email protected]
Fair Use
Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use. Section 107 calls for consideration of the following four factors in evaluating a question of fair use:
- Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes: Courts look at how the party claiming fair use is using the copyrighted work, and are more likely to find that nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses are fair. This does not mean, however, that all nonprofit education and noncommercial uses are fair and all commercial uses are not fair; instead, courts will balance the purpose and character of the use against the other factors below. Additionally, “transformative” uses are more likely to be considered fair. Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work.
- Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to which the work that was used relates to copyright’s purpose of encouraging creative expression. Thus, using a more creative or imaginative work (such as a novel, movie, or song) is less likely to support a claim of a fair use than using a factual work (such as a technical article or news item). In addition, use of an unpublished work is less likely to be considered fair.
- Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both the quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used. If the use includes a large portion of the copyrighted work, fair use is less likely to be found; if the use employs only a small amount of copyrighted material, fair use is more likely. That said, some courts have found use of an entire work to be fair under certain circumstances. And in other contexts, using even a small amount of a copyrighted work was determined not to be fair because the selection was an important part—or the “heart”—of the work.
- Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright owner’s original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider whether the use is hurting the current market for the original work (for example, by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the use could cause substantial harm if it were to become widespread.
In addition to the above, other factors may also be considered by a court in weighing a fair use question, depending upon the circumstances. Courts evaluate fair use claims on a case-bycase basis, and the outcome of any given case depends on a fact-specific inquiry. This means that there is no formula to ensure that a predetermined percentage or amount of a work—or specific number of words, lines, pages, copies—may be used without permission.