Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ coverage conflicts with CBS story

The Business & Media Institute’s Ken Shepherd notes that a Sept. 11 story in the Wall Street Journal about how the Kyoto Protocol was causing higher utility costs in Germany conflicted with an earlier CBS story.

Shepherd wrote, “Reporter Jeffrey Ball noted that in Germany, Kyoto-inspired rules ‘have upset the business status quo’ as they have ended up ‘creating winners and losers. The winners include utilities that can charge higher rates and profit from trading allowances’ while the losers ‘include energy-intensive manufacturers.’

“Later in his article Ball noted that the average German consumer also loses, with ‘wholesale electricity rates’ going up ‘25% to 60% in the past few years.’ Ball wrote that this is because while the tradable carbon allowance credits are free, ‘the utilities incorporate the value’ into the price of electricity.

“‘It becomes part of your production cost,’ explained Ralf Schafer of RWE AG, Germany’s largest utility.

“Ball’s reporting contrasted sharply with a report filed 11 days earlier on the ‘Evening News’ by CBS’s John Blackstone. Blackstone’s story portrayed a similar credit-trading plan passed into law in California as a green policy that was favorable to business.

“Blackstone noted that an ‘unlikely supporter,’ Pacific Gas & Electric CEO Peter Darbee, praised the plan. What Blackstone neglected to mention is that Darbee’s company, which can import more electricity produced out-of-state, could profit by trading unused credits.”

Read more here.

Recent Posts

Fortune’s Murray becoming Yale fellow

The Yale Program on Stakeholder Innovation and Management announced the appointment of Alan Murray, departing chief…

6 hours ago

Advocate seeks a business reporter in Baton Rouge

The Advocate is looking for a savvy reporter to cover the Baton Rouge business scene…

2 days ago

MLex seeks a reporter in Washington

MLex, a LexisNexis company, is an independent news organization for breaking news and forward-looking analysis…

2 days ago

Austin Biz Journal seeks an economic development reporter

The Austin Business Journal seeks a staff writer to cover economic development in one of…

2 days ago

Forbes journalist in Russia placed under house arrest

A Russian court on Saturday placed Sergei Mingazov, a journalist for the Russian edition of…

2 days ago

Investor’s Business Daily turns 40

Justin Nielsen of Investor's Business Daily writes about the newspaper's 40th anniversary. Nielsen writes, "When the…

2 days ago