When I was a young reporter at a metro daily newspaper, a middle-aged senior editor pulled me aside and gave me a bracing lecture about how we reporters should cover the news without fear or favor. No one is above our scrutiny, he said. Nothing is off limits.
Well, he added, there is one exception. He cleared his throat. Whatever you do, he told me, don’t write about the big department store in town.
You see, the big department store was the newspaper’s big advertiser. If we had kicked the shins of the big retailer, the retailer may have stopped advertising. That would have been a crippling financial setback to the newspaper.
An odd thing happened in subsequent years. Wal-Mart stores moved into town and soon became a dominant retailer. Did the newsroom show Wal-Mart the same deference? Absolutely not. We beat ’em up. In fact, we were encouraged to.
You see, Wal-Mart is not a newspaper advertiser. Even worse, Wal-Mart is a direct threat to big department stores and other retailers that are big advertisers. So it was no surprise to me that newsrooms everywhere sharpened their knives and plunged them into Wal-Mart as Wal-Mart systematically rolled over other retailers across the country.
On the opposite page you’ll see two views of Wal-Mart. One posits that Wal-Mart is detrimental to communities and basically should be kept out of Los Angeles. The other holds that Wal-Mart is essentially beneficial, and it asks why Wal-Mart is despised in such a full-throated, unrelenting manner.
Well, Wal-Mart is especially despised in Los Angeles because the City Council is in the pocket of labor unions, and Wal-Mart is decidedly non-union. As a result, there’s only a handful of Wal-Marts in Los Angeles and a true dearth of the big Wal-Mart super centers with groceries.
But one main reason why Wal-Mart is so relentlessly attacked across the country is because newsrooms have been given the green light to sic the behemoth with the audacity not to advertise. That’s why you see endless stories about how Wal-Mart kills Main Street, mom-and-pop shops or how Wal-Mart pushes down prices so relentlessly that it forces its vendors to go under or how Wal-Mart abuses its workers.
The story you probably won’t see is the one that holds other retailers to same scrutiny. (When was the last time you read a newspaper article about the top heavy prices or indifferent service at old-line department stores?)
Another story you’re not likely to see is the kind that points out that Wal-Mart, while it pushes vendors to slash prices, plays fair by paying its bills on time and by not forcing vendors to pay slotting fees or give box-seat tickets to store managers. You’re not likely to see stories extolling Wal-Mart’s low prices (Wal-Mart grocery shoppers save roughly 20 percent), delivering true buying power to the middle classes and relief to the working poor. And you’re not likely to see stories that point out that Wal-Mart workers earn $10.50 on average in California with many eligible for bonuses, and they enjoy profit-sharing and 401(k) plans, which is better than many retail jobs.
The City Council claims it is looking out for the poor and working poor of the city. If it is serious about that mission, it could do its citizens a true favor by showing some political courage. It should let Wal-Mart super centers in.
Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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