Conflict of Interest?

Yesterday I reported on an article I found on Page 8A of the El Paso Times. The article said that Senator Bernie Sanders had called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate the relationship between EPEC’s proposed buyer and JP Morgan Chase.

I thought the story deserved a more prominent position in the paper than Page 8A, below the teevee listings.

As though the paper didn’t want to call too much attention to the story.

Do you suppose that the reason that the newspaper’s editors decided that the story wasn’t very significant, or newsworthy, was because both the El Paso Electric Company and Gannett, the corporate owner of the El Paso Times, have the same owners?

BlackRock, Inc., owns 15.86% of EPEC stock. BlackRock owns 14.76% of Gannett.

Vanguard Group, Inc., owns 11.55% of the Electric Company, and 10.47% of Gannett.

It’s probably just a coincidence.

Curious, though, isn’t it, that those two big investment companies would own so much Gannett? Gannett’s stock has been on the slide for the last 20 months. Yesterday it dropped 22%.

But I guess they have their reasons.

Hanlon’s razor states that one should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. But isn’t it funny how some people’s honest mistakes always fall on their side of the fence?

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