KILLER KILOWATTS:
CALIFORNIA'S ELECTRICITY DEREGULATION FIASCO

It's a pitiful sight: The CEO of California's largest investor-owned utility, Southern California Edison, is now doing commercials pleading his corporate plight, as a victim of deregulation.

He, a founder of and major contributor to the Natural Resources Defense Council, along with a top attorney for NRDC and Senator Steve Peace, were the chief proponents of deregulation.

Edison and the other IOUs in California were major campaign contributors to Senator Peace as well. At the same time, SCE's CEO was also on the board of directors of Times Mirror, publisher of the dominant newspaper in California, the Los Angeles Times.

SCE shareholders and three (now departed) top editors of the L.A. Times were given two weeks advance warning of when the dereg bill would likely come up for a vote in the Legislature.

However, Times' readers had little opportunity for timely input, as they were not given prominent notice of the bill's existence until the day after it passed, unanimously.

This was the old L.A. Times. It has since been taken over by the Tribune Corp.

The new top editors now have staff vigorously reporting on the story of how residents and small businesses in San Diego, Senator Peace's home base, have been gouged with electric bills as much as four times as great as before.

Moral: Conflicts of interest in media-owning corporations may be hazardous to your economic and overall well-being.

Journalism is not only about what is reported on and when and how, but it's also about what is not reported on at all.