By David L. Grey
Media Watch
The “power crisis” has become a huge California and Bay Area news story. It also has received recent intense national-international media attention.
But while this story grew rapidly, its roots were slow in developing by most area news media. We had the rolling blackouts of June 14. But it was not until late fall’s cold weather and holiday lighting concerns that every news day suddenly seemed to turn into an energy shortage doomsday.
How could the issue have snuck up on us? Well, it shouldn’t have and really didn’t.
The story was there all along but we were not being told enough and not paying enough attention. One example comes from about two years ago, right from the announcement of a proposed 600 megawatt power plant in South San Jose just southwest of where highways 101 and 85 meet in north Coyote Valley. And right next to where Cisco Systems has long planned to build its large new campus.
One way to condense this drawn-out conflict might be to call it a battle of big Bay Area forces: San Jose-based power plant builder Calpine Corp., in partnership with San Francisco-based contractor Bechtel Enterprises, vs. large numbers of south San Jose residents protesting the power plant.
Eventually both Cisco and the San Jose City Council joined in opposing Calpine’s location. The Council voted it down, 11-0, Nov. 28-29, even as power shortages loomed. Debates then and even now have centered less on power and more on appropriate land use for existing neighborhoods and San Jose’s long-awaited high tech-type growth.
Since November, changes in and rethinking about energy have further complicated the controversy. In fact, state energy commissioners are scheduled to finish up public hearings today, Friday and March 23 in the South Bay to decide if or how the plant, known as the Metcalf Energy Center, might still be built.
Most area broadcasters and especially the San Jose Mercury News tended to treat the proposed plant as primarily a South San Jose story - thus not attending to the broader Bay Area implications it always has had.
This meant the Mercury News, through its modified edition for Peninsula readers, was often not reporting the Metcalf plant battle in our area. Or printing far smaller stories than the longer ones published only in San Jose.
That is still happening often today, even about some important-to-Bay Area Cisco news events. So it has become necessary on the Peninsula to try to follow select ongoing San Jose issues by seeking out other news sources, including the Mercury News’ online versions and even San Francisco and national Web sites.
In sum, this reflects major gaps for a metropolitan daily newspaper which claims to cover all the Bay Area for all of us; too often it doesn’t or can’t.
Thus another media lesson to be relearned. To try to follow both local and area events we still need even more news outlets. On the mid-Peninsula, newspapers such as the Town Crier cannot be expected to fully cover Bay Area power stories nor can the Mercury News we may get, or think we may get.
David L. Grey, Ph.D., of Mountain View, is professor emeritus of journalism at San Jose State University , where he taught and researched on media law and ethics. He can be reached at: greyline@pacbell.net
