But once again the Chronicle refused to cover the key point: the PG&E/City Hall/Raker Act scandal by which PG&E controls the city's public electricity generated by the Hetch Hetchy dam in violation of federal law. (See previous blogs and Guardian stories dating back to l969). Instead, the Chronicle continued to censor the scandal by saying, "PG&E's performance exasperates many of its customers and has fueled unsuccessful attempts in several cities--including the company's hometown of San Francisco--to break away from the utility."

That's the only reference to the scandal in this long story, a wimpy little phrase that purposely obscures and trivializes the issue. The questions are obvious: why didn't the Chronicle take this timely occasion to lay out the Raker Act issue and explain how PG&E muscle and money has for decades kept the city's residents and businesses from getting its own cheap, clean, and green public power from its own Hetch Hetchy dam? Why didn't it point out how PG&E muscle and money has kept the city's residents and businesses from getting its own cheap, clean, and green public power from its own dam? Why didn't it point out that the only way the city will get good service at a good rate is to kick PG&E out of City Hall and bring in our own Hetch Hetchy power to our own people?

Why didn't it at minimum call public power spokespeople for comment (such as Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who led the two public power initiative campaigns and was the lead Chronicle the day before with his criticism of Mayor Newsom on the Golden Gate Park cleanup mess?) In short, another Chronicle censored story that makes my point. The Chronicle has reporters and editors who can take on the big stories, but they cannot buck the Hearst corporate virus that has for decades censored its coverage of the PG&E/CityHall/Raker Act scandal.

Impertinent questions: How is this done? I have a standing question for Chronicle reporters and editors: Do they flinch and self-censor every time they do a PG&E story? Or does the word come from an editor or from corporate in New York?

Well, I will once again send this story over to Editor Phil Bronstein and his editors and reporters on the story for comment. And I will send it to Hearst corporate in New York. But I afraid that waiting for Hearst is like waiting for Godot. B3, writing this as I look out from my office window at the fumes of the Mirant power plant at the bottom of Potrero Hill in the midst of the emerging Mission Bay development, all courtesy of PG&E and Hearst.

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