Chronicle, Lazarus missed big story in San Francisco

Former San Francisco Chronicle business columnist David Lazarus and his newspaper have ignored one of the biggest consumer stories in the area, writes Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Lazarus, whose skills as a journalist Brugmann lauded, recently left the paper to become the business columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

Brugmann wrote, “And yet, despite the fact that Lazarus is a damn good reporter and a strong consumer advocate and claims support from his paper, he was still unable to cover the biggest consumer story in San Francisco history.

“Which is, as attentive Guardian readers know, the PG@E/City Hall/Raker Act scandal and how PG@E has cheated the city’s businesses and residents for decades out of the city’s own cheap, clean, and green Hetch Hetchy electrical power. (See past Bruce blogs and Guardian stories and editorials going back to l969).

“Why couldn’t Lazarus, with his entrepreneurial consumer column gracing the business page each day, cover this big story? I once asked him directly at an awards banquet of the Society of Professional Journalists, where he was given a well-deserved award for his consumer reporting. He said he couldn’t get ‘any interest’ from his editors. Why was that? He said nothing further and turned away, obviously not wanting to discuss the issue.

“And so, through the years, I have often popped a Guardian story or editorial on the scandal over to Lazarus, or other reporters doing a PG@E-friendly story, and their editors, with various versions of this key question: Why don’t you cover this big local story that has cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars over the years? Do you censor it yourself, or do your editors, or does Hearst corporate in New York? I have yet to get an answer.”

Read more here.