Looking Back On The Birth of The Observer

It’s 1978 and the circumstances that bring about the birth of the Fullerton Observer, foreshadow events we witness today. It’s about oil and energy back then too. It’s also about greed, corruption, and a stolen election then, as it is now. The birth of the Fullerton Observer comes in a summer when we still lick our Vietnam War wounds. A presidential scandal is still fresh in our memories, and the sting on an oil embargo points the way to the future. The events of those days bring a group of citizens together who hope to have a voice in local politics. We call ourselves Fullerton Citizens for a Livable Community. We are the Kennedy, Ivens, Kobayashi, Standring, and Gann families, and many others who care about Fullerton. We are also a rag tag band of students and community activists charging forth in Earth Shoes, or mounted on bicycles. Brewster leads the charge in what we now know is an immortal Volkswagen. We wear buttons that urge people to support causes, help farm workers, and boycott grapes. It’s an electric time for solar powered idealistic dreamers. We see a good chance of electing a majority to Fullerton’s City Council. Two people on the city council already support our views. Our candidate, Ralph Kennedy, is clearly in the lead with two opposition seats up for grabs. We think we can’t lose this election. With youthful exuberance, we poise to usher in an era of enlightenment. We will insure that thousands of undeveloped acres in the Coyote Hills will be preserved in open space. We will build bicycle trails and affordable housing. We will encourage the use of solar energy and improve public transportation. Kennedy speaks softly to interested groups at neighborhood meetings and campaign stops. Heads nod in agreement when he talks of saving the Coyote Hills. He argues logically, “Why can’t the land oil companies originally purchased for almost nothing and made billions of dollars on over the years, revert back to public use?” In those days we didn’t know yet that oil companies care little about civic responsibilities. Walking precincts and calling voters convinces us that our dreams of the future will soon be a reality. We feel the whole world should vote for Ralph Kennedy and the ideas he’s espousing. Arrora Standring organizes a folk dancing party, where we dance the streets in Birkenstocks. The day before the election, the foundation of our world is shaken. The only local paper at the time launches a broadside missile. Their banner, front-page headline shouts that Ralph Kennedy is the “target of a voter fraud investigation...” We wonder, what’s that? They might as well have claimed Kennedy had taken up cannibalism, it would have been as true and had the same effect. Kennedy’s precinct walkers and telephone volunteers begin to notice people are suddenly cold to the campaign. There’s talk of “all politicians being corrupt.” Some people say that the newspaper wouldn’t have run such a story if Kennedy hadn’t been up to something nefarious. The paper, in fact, used their position as one of the few newspapers voices left in Orange County, to smear Kennedy’s reputation, and change the outcome of an election. We don’t know it yet, but this is going to give us an idea. This also taught us that the definition of evil is making good things look bad, and the depraved look godly. The voter fraud probe turns out to be centered on the simple fact that quite a number of people are registered to vote at the Kennedy house. Indeed 12 people have registered to vote at the Kennedy house. These people are simply members of the large Kennedy family, foster children who had been taken in, college kids who had rented rooms. These registered voters simply reflect a rich involved life, not a crime. On Election Day the newspaper runs a retraction but the damage has been done and our confidence in journalistic ethics shaken. We watch helplessly and lose miserably. Being close to winning is insulting, and shows how close we had actually been. We feel cheated. Ralph takes the entire campaign staff to Los Angeles to see Man of La Mancha. We sit in a dark theatre and ponder impossible dreams. Later we find out the winners throw their own party where they laugh and joke at what fools they made of us. We know of this jocularity because of an accidental spy. A waitress at the banquet room, who is invisible to the celebrating victors, had worked on the Kennedy campaign. She quietly witnesses a city trash contractor pick up the hefty tab for the party which is never claimed as a campaign contribution. Clearly a violation of campaign finance laws. We have a great story but no honest newspaper to take it to. Someone suggests we start our own newspaper, and this idea clicks with everyone. Broken-hearted campaign workers, needing something to pour their efforts into, hop on this task with missionary zeal. They become observers. The first edition with the story creates quite a stir and The Fullerton Observer is born. Twenty-five years later, a look back on the events that led to the birth the Fullerton Observer holds lessons for today. Small community newspapers are needed now even more than a quarter of a century ago. Media organizations have bought up and closed down thousands of small community newspapers. Indeed, most every town in Orange County once had at least one newspaper. Now they have all been silenced. The lesson of the Fullerton Observer is that citizens who are interested in democracy must put out their own newspapers. Fairness is no longer important in electronic media since the Fairness Doctrine was gutted. Laws that once restricted the ownership of media outlets have also been changed to benefit corporations and not democracy. Radio and television stations by the thousands are owned by a handful of corporations. Talk radio stations, for example, no longer encourage intelligent dialogue on the issues, but spout propaganda day and night. Ken Mynard recently reported on his morning radio show that media conglomerates actually hire consultants who dictate what news stories and points of view are best for the bottom line. Some political positions are deemed profitable and likely to sell advertising, others are not. Decisions once made by professional journalists, are now made by pollsters looking for profit from advertising sales. So it comes to pass that the Fullerton Observer, an independent community newspaper put out by volunteers, has a 25th birthday. We now see that such newspapers are not only rare and wonderful things, but perhaps our last hope of preserving democracy.

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