Editorial: The Newspaper of Record, In Short Supply for Sunland Tujunga

Originally published 8/24/2012; this post refutes journalistic claims made by David "Doc" DeMulle, a formerly unknown photo-journalist who joined Sunland-Tujunga's "No 2 Home Depot" campaign (he later told a source he was the burglar who broke into the Home Depot attorney's offices to steal critical documents) and initiated his non-profit 'newspaper' which was thrown into local front yards as a campaign outreach. After the campaign, Doc published The Foothills Paper as self expression, using it to retaliate against Sunland-Tujungans he is at odds with. His increasingly libelous articles escape prosecution because he targets those unable to afford the expense of lawsuits.

The Foothills Paper no longer calls itself "The Newspaper of Record for Sunland Tujunga". The only publication to entirely earn and hold that distinction was Sunland Tujunga's historic Record Ledger which ceased publication some 20 years ago. I was a reporter and proofreader for that newspaper in the 70s.

"The Newspaper of Record" is a privileged term in journalism; highly desired and seldom earned. It comes from "The Newspaper of Public Record" which refers literally to publications approved by government sources to print legal notices. Legal notices are the bread and butter of the advertising department; they are a steady source of income. "Legals" must run a certain number of issues to satisfy court orders. They are paid copy and very valuable to a publication, which must have a high circulation and matching reputation to qualify to run them. The Foothills Paper doesn't run legals. The Record Ledger ran pages of them; I thought I'd go blind proofing that fine print.

"The Newspaper of Record" (not 'Public Record') is a term equally clear in its demands upon a publication to qualify for such distinction. According to Wikipedia, in order to call itself such, the publication must "typically consist of those newspapers that are considered to meet higher standards of journalism than most print media (including editorial independence and attention to accuracy) and are usually renowned." That does not describe The Foothills Paper.

The Foothills Paper once called itself the newspaper of record for the Sunland Tujunga community. It was not qualified to do so. Not one of the above qualifications can be said of The Foothills Paper. It does not have a high circulation or a high reputation. It does not meet higher standards, nor attention to accuracy and is not renowned. Infamous, yes... renowned, no.

On the other hand, "Yellow Journalism" according to Wikipedia "presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines...Techniques may include exaggeration of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion."

Now what disturbs me in this whole thought provoking discussion is the blatant use and abuse by The Foothills Paper to capitalize on current community controversy by promising angry Sunland brick and mortar restaurants their "side" will be addressed in The Foothills Paper re: the Food Truck Standoff if they agree to be a distribution point for The Foothills Paper. Many of these locations never distributed (or read) this paper before. Most of them do not advertise in The Foothills Paper as required by the paper to be distributors.

This is a frank effort by The Foothills Paper to advance the controversy rather than report it. It is a disservice to both sides of the issue and an unethical attempt to 'make the news' then report it. Doc DeMulle, the publisher of The Foothills Paper had to be ordered by Councilman Alarcon to leave the meeting last week between supporters of the Food Truck Night and brick and mortar stores. An independent source says Doc resisted the order but the audience agreed he should leave. No press was allowed to attend the meeting. Neither side apparently believes in the press anymore... there is no Newspaper of Record for our community of Sunland Tujunga. Where is Philip Horwith, Lucy Colville, and Jennifer Olson when you need them?

BOYCOTT The Foothills Paper

Doc DeMulle persuades an unwitting GoodWill employee to
display the latest Foothills Paper with a headline falsely
accusing a community member of murder!

BOYCOTT The Foothills Paper!

This is a call to arms for all the citizens, stakeholders, and visitors of Sunland Tujunga to blot out the existence once and for all of the Foothills Paper, the warped and illegitimately labeled “newspaper of record” for Sunland Tujunga. This publication by Doc DeMulle is a travesty of the term, ‘journalism’.

Never in the history of journalism has a publication been more deserving of such an action. Public outcry is not enough as David “Doc” DeMulle, the publisher/writer/owner of The Foothills Paper is perversely motivated by shock, hurt, despair, and deliberate personal injury his articles, editorials, cartoons, and posts cause citizens of Sunland Tujunga. The man is certainly capable of genuine journalism but uses his newspaper as a weapon. Not capable however of rapier wit, Doc bludgeons citizens with slanderous and libelous words of print. Doc DeMulle “lies, cheats, and steals”, to craft articles without a shred of truth in them. Lies are the mainstay of his ‘informational’ style. No Associated Press credentials can be extended to the author of deliberate ‘yellow journalism’.

If readers are all this man writes for, he has them. So stop reading his words! Let them dry up and blow away like desiccated weeds. Think of his words as the virus you never want yourself or anyone you care for to be contaminated by. 

Stop reading Doc DeMulle’s wretched Foothills Paper! Stop allowing this abomination to be representative of our community! Stop allowing legitimate counter space for this miscarriage of the written word! Stop advertising in this embarrassing publication! Stop reading his on-line version and his Facebook version of the Foothills Paper. Stop allowing it to be distributed in legitimate locations such as the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council meetings, the Sunland Tujunga library and the Los Angeles City Council office!

Doc DeMulle does not care who he hurts, how he destroys lives and relationships; Doc thrives on discord and takes personal pride in his deliberate destruction of Sunland Tujunga with his utterly false words, outright lies, and carefully crafted layers of deceitful articles that NEVER add anything of value to the community but are aimed at the heart of our community with every intention to kill it. Doc is murderous in his desire to hurt Sunland Tujunga.

Doc writes false headlines accusing innocent citizens of murder. Doc falsely accuses neighborhood council members of lying, cheating and stealing. Doc fabricates stories and prints them without a shred of proof. Doc DeMulle makes parody of religion, light of death, and feels utterly no shame at personal injury aimed like bullets of print at anyone who confronts him.

Doc DeMulle is a common journalistic criminal. His crime is in print and bears witness against him. Find him guilty and sentence him to silence. Silence his words by not reading them: he will have only himself to listen too and that will be justice.



An example of Doc's manipulation of the printed word to insert lies in the text of another... http://brockbajer.blogspot.com/2011/08/guilt-by-association.html

One Year Later... Brock Baj'er's First Post Is History (In The Making)

David "Doc" DeMulle starts more fires than he puts out.

Enough is enough.

Brock Baj'er has been sleeping and was rudely awakened by Doc DeMulle of The Foothills Paper infamy, digging up dirt and going out of his way to step on her while she remained on the sidelines. The Badger is mad. The Badger is launching a campaign to boycott The Foothills Paper: the only "paper of record" to spew dirt on the community it professes to serve.

Contact Brock if you want to join this campaign...

In the meantime, here is the original article that launched the blog Brock Baj'er: read it and weep but never sleep. The enemy is at the door: http://brockbajer.blogspot.com/2011/07/where-is-foothills-paper-foothills.html

The 'Doc' Debate

I'm sort of stuck between the Rock and a hard place... Remember that original controversy that landed me in hot water in this community two years ago? Well I do, because today I changed my mind. And my stand and my opinion. Wow. I did not even know I was going to do it till the words were out of my mouth and were the exact opposite of the view I held two years ago...

At that time I challenged the campaign to boycott advertisers in The Foothills Paper, a local publication almost entirely dedicated as the mouthpiece of publisher Doc DeMulle. I felt it was unfair to target the advertisers in order to force them to pull their ads from The Foothills Paper and cause it to fold by drying it up financially. I contacted the advertisers and supported their decision. I still feel the Paper (not the advertisers) should be boycotted if readers find it objectionable. Nearly all do. But everyone still reads it! Oh well. I moved on...

Recently my new employer wanted to advertise in our community and proudly told me she had found the 'community newspaper': The Foothills Paper and was about to call them for ad space. Oh Noooooo!!! I set her straight. "Nothing good can ever come of having your ad or your name in The Foothills Paper!" I declared. Don't do it! As I recounted some of the offensive statements that went to press in The Foothills Paper my friend paled. "Does he just make these remarks in the editorial section?" she asked. "No" I replied, they are throughout the whole paper, like legitimate news." She decided not to advertise in The Foothills Paper.

When I told this story to a friend tonight I said "I just don't want anyone or anything I care about to advertise in The Foothills Paper..." Then I realized, "wow, I just declared support for the drive against advertisers in The Paper!"

It's easy to champion a cause when its not your own. It's different when it becomes personal. Maybe all journalists should experience a reality check from time to time? And maybe you should think who you are likely to offend Doc, with your un-newsworthy newspaper.

A Murder of Crows, A Plague of Politicians, an Augur of Activists

Where do good roads lead?

I love collective nouns. The poet Ogden Nash paid homage to a splendid selection of them. From time to time I add a few of my own to existing ones like ‘a Murder of Crows’. I favor: a Plague of Politicians, an Augur of Activists, and a Crisis of Community...

Did you know that somewhere between One Side and The Other, are people who feel no compulsion to take sides? They live out their lives in other pursuits. This kind of non-conformity intrigues me. (It strikes me as non-conformity because others are so quick to jump into the fray; those who think before they leap are rare.) Their lives are meaningful, even better than most. (Oh okay, maybe they are a bit boring…)

Then there are those who live on a steady, heady diet of political turmoil, self sacrificing activism, community uprisings… breaking news, emergency meetings, indignation, outrage, revolt… gossip, libel, slander… right, wrong, righteous, and renunciatory.

It’s heady stuff: this Crisis of Community. I was once in the thick of it. I paid the price. And I guess I really am glad others want to take up that mantle. But at what cost? I have formed surprising relationships with remarkable community activists and I care for those who are in it up to their um, Levis labels. I hate to see them sacrifice so much that can never be regained. The personal cost is tremendous. Is it worth it?

How do they do it? How do they dedicate themselves so fully to responsibility that was never theirs? Well, frankly… nothing else matters. (Apologies to Metallica.) Family is shunted aside, friends are forgotten, vacations postponed, jobs are lost, disability checks and unemployment checks become income, taxes go unpaid, homes are sacrificed to foreclosure, health issues are ignored, marriages are threatened, relationships ruined, and that’s just the beginning. It’s an addiction!

Is it wrong to do right? Well it is expensive. I’ve been watching the price others are willing to pay. Are the dividends a fair return? Beware the political promise of a ‘place at the table’, or the act of martyrdom. When the fateful and historic election/cause/controversy is over, no one remembers who led it, although many claim it. Community involvement as a whole is a given though later unacknowledged. 

Consider Home Depot, Commerce Avenue, the Senior Citizen Center, the FBCSP, Land Use Committees, STNC activities, Samoa SB1818, Mount Gleason, and more. And I'm not even mentioning politics. See what I mean? If you are Sunland Tujungan, chances are your blood pressure just shot up. Yet no one agrees on any of these issues nor who the champions were and are. It’s not that these efforts aren't meaningful, they are. But at such a cost. Who paid that price?

On the other hand I can’t stop reading Mop and Bucket, Street Hassle, the Foothills Paper, the Sunland Tujunga Alliance website, and the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council bulletins... (I have cut the Foothills Forum from the lineup however, one must have values!)

And I can’t say I don’t get palpitations at the hint of a racy story or a new Joan of Arc pursuing the noble cause… Oh no! I’m hooked. I'm a Sunland Tujungan... Write on, all you political-activist-community-crisis-leaders, write on.

The community is reading.

http://www.rinkworks.com/words/collective

The Foothills Paper 'Goes Silently Into That Goodnight'

[EDIT: There has been a recent (tremendous) surge of new interest in this: the first article on Brock Ba'jer which launched the site. Please note the edits to the article now added: four months later...]

[On August 10, 2012 Terre Ashmore formally entered the debate as an opponent to the continued publication of The Foothills Paper and exercised her right to boycott the continued publication of The Foothills Paper.]



Where is The Foothills Paper?!

The Foothills Paper is no more...

The Foothills Paper claimed a readership of 4000 local residents (out of 65,000) in the twin cities of Sunland and Tujunga, two communities with a rural backdrop and residents boasting generations of residency in the outskirts of Los Angeles, California.

But in a dramatic gesture ‘Doc’ David DeMulle, editor of The Foothills Paper ceased publication of his rather famous (some would say infamous) newspaper July 22, 2011. [The Foothills Paper was not printed for four weeks then resumed following publication of this article on Brock Ba'jer. The Foothills Paper does not generate enough to pay for itself.] In a special staff meeting on July 25, Doc informed staff he could no longer afford to pay for the production of The Foothills Paper out of his own pocket, adding it cost him about $1000 per issue to produce.

In an email sent that evening to staff and columnists who missed the meeting, Doc made an appeal, “The Paper is the last bastion of information to rally the citizens” he wrote. “We're dead in the water. What this means to you, is this.  We are going to have to cut back on paid columns and ask every writer to come help us put out The Paper every other week.  If you can't or won't help, we will drop your column to save printing costs.  We need to fall back and re-form or we die.”

But few replied and only two showed up to work on Wednesday. Doc was packing to move. His advertising department (the lifeblood of a newspaper) had already departed weeks before. Efforts to send out billing by those unfamiliar with the task fell short and advertising customers simply failed to pay their bills. Monies that might have saved the publication went uncollected.

To aggravate a tense situation, The Paper’s phones and internet went down the entire week as well and all efforts and repairmen hired to reinstate the service met with escalating electrical and technical problems. Jokes about “the ghost in the machine” became prophetic as the bastion of communication became unreachable.

More than the aggravation of phone problems and the mismanagement of advertising dollars however, Doc cited the overwhelming numbers of news stories waiting to be researched and written by too few staff writers as his greatest concern: "The corruption we've uncovered is more than we can handle by ourselves. We have no salespeople. People in S-T are too poor to advertise and the surrounding communities look down on us as being crass, stupid and poor." 

In a lengthy list of the stories of local corruption and waste he had planned to publish, he gave priority to the proposal to amend Sunland Tujunga’s Specific Plan.

“The Foothill Blvd. Corridor Specific Plan will destroy the residents up to 4 blocks above and below Foothill Blvd.; The Ralph's Center is 90% vacant. The Commerce Center is 95% vacant. Commerce is 65% vacant... We're being set up for redevelopement!" Doc declared to staff. Doc himself is a stakeholder in the community who adamantly opposes the proposal. [The street of 'Historic Commerce' is a ghost town. Doc previously published a scathing expose' about the group called COBRA which collected monies to restore this original main street of Tujunga. Doc claimed COBRA drove business owners away with anonymous Building and Safety complaints and harassment. The improvements have all been allowed to decline; expensive planters are filled with dead plants, street trees are butchered by unskilled pruners, graffiti is left unchallenged, and the elaborate sign was stolen and never replaced.]

Interestingly, the most suspect of events expected to shut down The Foothills Paper, did not. Three months ago a group of local activists, enraged at Doc for the “slanderous lies” they were the subject of in The Foothills Paper, organized a boycott against the advertisers of The Paper to force them to drop their ads and cause The Paper to fold. Led by Joe Barrett and Robin Meares, the boycott had the opposite effect, polarizing the community and causing advertisers to dig their heels in. [In a surprise move the writer of this blog Terre Ashmore later supported efforts to shut down The Foothills Paper after previously defending it.]

The Foothills Paper has recently had a surge in readership after covering the opposing view to the hotly debated proposal made by The Sunland Tujunga Alliance, The Chamber of Commerce and partial board membership of the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council (STNC).

Their proposal to amend The Foothill Boulevard Corridor Specific Plan (FBCSP) is countered by members of the STNC Board who did not agree to the proposal. The opposing side is led by David Cain, 2^nd Vice President of the STNC who wrote a counter letter to Councilman Krekorian which was published in the Foothills Paper. [Councilman Krekorian never publicly acknowledged or replied to David Cain's letter.] [Cain later resigned and disappeared into obscurity.]

The debate was played out on The Foothills Forum: a community forum where thousands of views and hundreds of posts kept moderators busy. Any inquiry related to either view became anathema and many secret meetings have been conducted by both sides in an effort to win the Councilman over. [ 'Secret meetings' was the original text now hi-lighted. This article alerted the public early to this but no one caught it.]

With so much happening in the community it seems tragic somehow that any voice is silenced, even one so controversial. Recently, Doc made several comments eliciting an outraged response from the subjects he targeted on the Street Hassle blog. He used the penname Devils Advocate. How apropos as he is certainly the "person who often argues the 'wrong' side, perversely or for arguments sake". Whatever your take on his style and character, Doc is a writer who is read and reread.

What more can a wordsmith ask?

[Doc continues to publish The Foothills Paper at his own expense...]