THE AMAZING INVISIBLE OWNER

Why do you suppose the Plain Dealer, in all its coverage of the West Virginia mine tragedy this week, has never once printed the words "Wilbur Ross"?

Ross, as you must know if you read about the Sago mine disaster elsewhere, is the billionaire board chairman of the International Coal Group, which runs the Sago operation through a recently acquired subsidiary, ICG Anker. He's also the guy who created the International Steel Group to rescue the bankrupt LTV Steel operations four years ago, then sold it to Mittal Steel last year.

(In the case of ISG, Ross partnered enthusiastically with the United Steelworkers. But in his more recent move into coal, buying out the bankrupt Horizon Natural Resources in 2004, Ross insisted on voiding United Mineworkers contracts as a condition of the deal; see stories here and here.)

Ross and ICG have been a prominent part of the Sago story (see here, here, and here for example) and Ross has been a public voice for ICG several times since the story broke. He was grilled by Brian Ross on ABC's Primetime Live Thursday evening, and his hands-on knowledge of safety issues at Sago was the subject of a Thursday story in the New York Post.

Yet if you only read the Plain Dealer, you wouldn't have one clue that Ross is part of the Sago mine story.

Given Ross' prominence in Cleveland economic news for the past five years, this is a gaping hole in the PD's coverage. What's going on?