The Fullerton Fabricator & City Hall Apologist
The Fullerton Observer continues to sink to new lows in its coverage of important Fullerton issues. Or lack of coverage.
In its most recent edition it published a redevelopment article which was simply an interview with RDA Director Rob Zur Schmiede, whose very job depends on RDA expansion. Wow, that’s cutting edge investigative journalism!
The Observer has totally ignored the RDA’s $6 million McDonald‘s move. An evil corporation making kids fat, a giveaway to the rich, money intended for blight going to promote junk food! Fast Food Nation was written by muckraking journalists that the Observer should emulate. $6 million to help McDonald’s make high school kids fatter!
The Observer has completely ignored the story that has excited even usually tepid reporter Barbara Giasone. They will NOT embarrass the council majority that it helped elect with their endorsement. Jones, Bankhead, Quirk, Keller were all backed by the Observer.
Could it also be that the Fullerton RDA–is paying for quarter page ads in the Observer?
The Observer has published two pieces by Supervisor Norby expressing the County’s opposition to the RDA expansion, but only after leaking both articles to city staff in time to write rebuttals. The rebuttals themselves are not fact-checked by anyone and are filled with lies.
In the current July 2009 edition (Page 4) Kennedy bewails the 1994 recall of Bankhead after he “voted to support a ½ cent utility rate increase to keep the city from going bankrupt”. Three wrong statements in one sentence!
It was NOT a utility rate increase, but a utility TAX on gas, water, electricity and cable TV. It was NOT a half cent but 2%. It did NOT keep the City from going bankrupt. In fact, it was repealed soon after the recall and has saved us Fullerton tax payers over $ 100 Million dollars over the past 15 years and the City is just fine!
True to form, the Observer has supported every city, county and state ballot measure that increased taxes, most of which went down in defeat. It especially likes sales tax hikes, which disproportionately affects the poor–the supposed constituents of a “progressive” paper.
How could the Observer ignore $6 million in corporate welfare right in their own backyard? I thought this was a liberal rag.
I’ve been reading this blog for some time now but this is the first time i’ve felt compelled to comment because this post really rang true to me. I have been reading the Observer for many years including the time that the late Ralph Kennedy was editor. I too have noticed how devoid of controversial content that paper is.
Its good to have a source of information on Fullerton topics that gives the real scoop. Go FFFF!
it is no mystery to me why the fullerton observer is, in my opinion,at best plagiarism and usually a waste of paper unless your totally broke and can’t afford toilet paper. why won’t sharon kennedy post her education and work history in her paper? If she doesn’t post it then the public will assume the worst about her.
It amazes me the crap the Observer writes about, or should I say, what they don’t write about. Fact-less based articles; feel good, BS stories. The council members the Observer backed says it all.
Observer founder Ralph Kennedy saw himself as an outsider crusading for the underdog. Twice he was beaten for a council seat, after being smeared pretty badly by completely trumped up charges (anyone remember those?)
Now, however, the Observer sees itself as the defender of the council majority & bureaucracy. It shies away from any cutting edge story.
Anything critical of the council is pre-filtered and rebutted by their spokesholes in the same article.
Come on, Sharon–where’s Ralph’s crusading spirit? Would he have sat still for $6 million in public “blight-fighting” funds being spent for a multi-national purveyor of junk fast food?
And would he have EVER endorsed a Dick Jones for a 4th term?
It’s reads like a community college newspaper with an agenda of protecting the Old and the Liberal on the council. Notice its carefully filtered and censored a week later after any City Hall action took place? That’s not a real newspaper, thats a student paper being edited by Principal/staff before it goes out.
Wish we had something with honest writers, who don’t get advertising and editorial combined. This is why they are just a joke and all of those newsstand offering it for free are totally full. What a waste of trees.
Isn’t run out of a garage in a back alley somewhere?
sage, i personally know those were not trumped up charges. If you don’t believe then asked the fullerton Observer why i know the truth
I signed up for a subscription. Thanks for creating a source to see through the smoke.