Wal-Mart "apologizes", Admits They Were Wrong To Ban Newspaper

[XanaDUer]

Follow up to this article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4198606

Published Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Wal-Mart to lift ban on selling Pensacola News Journal

By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
PENSACOLA, Fla.

Wal-Mart is lifting a local manager's ban on selling the Pensacola News Journal at area stores, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. It was imposed in response to a column the manager considered derogatory to the retailer.

Columnist Mark O'Brien wrote in June 19 editions that Pensacola should "be more than the Wal-Mart kind of town we're becoming - cheap and comfy on the surface, lots of unhappiness and hidden costs underneath."

O'Brien then cited a New York Times report that Georgia's health care program included more than 10,000 children of Wal-Mart workers, costing taxpayers nearly $10 million a year. He noted the Times report was cited in "The World is Flat," a new book by Thomas Friedman about the global economy..."

More here:

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/APF/507261076

[NativeTexan]

1. And Pensacola....

reminds me of my hometown of Greenville, Texas. Same problems as the newspaper talks about.

PLUS, the local WalMart won't even advertise with the local newspaper in ANY FORM!!

Go Figger!!

[XanaDUer]

3. That's the area that keeps getting hurricaned.

Probably one of the most conservative areas in Florida. I'm surprised Wal-Mart backed down on this one.

[NMDemDist2]

2. AZ just came out with a study showing WM has by far (4 times)

the most employees on the State Medicaid program than any other employer (next highest was McDonald's)

[NewJeffCT]

8. same in Connecticut

They did a survey here in CT recently, WM was #1, followed by Dunkin Donuts & McDonald's in people getting state medicaid. I think CT spent $43 million on the top 10 last year.

[Sgent]

4. Did they take it out of the stores

or just not allow it in?

I'm just wondering because I know that Wal-Mart is obscenely hard to sell in for local newspapers. One of my buddies was circulation manager for one of the largest papers in our area, and it took him 6 months or more to get placement. That have all kind of weird requirements that other vendors don't.

[XanaDUer]

5. Not sure what you mean.

They stopped carrying it to sell because they did not like the negative article written by a journalist, then said if the newspaper fired the journalist, they might restock it.

From the original article:

You can't buy the Pensacola News Journal at Wal-Mart anymore.

The store ordered us off their property, told us to come pick up our newspaper racks and clear out.

So we did.

A few people called last week, some even wrote letters to the editor, and wanted to know why they couldn't buy the newspaper at Wal-Mart in the days after Hurricane Dennis.

Some managers at Wal-Mart didn't appreciate a column Mark O'Brien wrote last month about the downside of the cheap prices that Sam Walton's empire has brought to America. We all pay a little less, and sometimes a lot less, at the grocery store and department store because of Mr. Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart.

Mr. Walton developed a brilliant business model that allowed him to undercut the prices of his competitors. He made sure that the blue jeans his store sold were cheaper than the jeans the store down the road sold. And if some store had a two-for-one special on boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Wal-Mart would have a three-for-one special.

Leave it to old Mark, whose column runs four days a week in this newspaper, to find a downside to this. Actually, it wasn't Mark, but Thomas Friedman, who wrote "The World is Flat," which happens to be a best seller right now...

[Sgent]

6. ahh... ok (nm)

[noamnety]

7. Bad reporting here

Hart said the average full-time pay is more than $10 an hour, twice the federal minimum wage, and that a recent survey estimated 160,000 people nationally had moved off uninsured status by going to work for Wal-Mart.

The reporter shouldn't have let that quote go unchallenged, given Walmart's history with that word "full-time," given that the national average for production and nonsupervisory workers is over $15 an hour, and given their health insurance record.

He allowed the newspaper to become an echo chamber for their misrepresentations and spin.