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Sept. 2, 2006

What is up with the liberal left's anti-Wal-Mart campaign? I asked some of my liberal friends about that and was told it's because Wal-Mart “unfairly” treats its workers by allegedly keeping them on part-time status instead of full-time in order to deny them benefits, such as health insurance.
     Maybe so, but ain't this America, where you're free to quit a part-time job and find a full-time one with benefits, if you can? And if part-time at Wal-Mart is the best job you can find, it's still far better than no job at all, or drawing welfare benefits. So why should a major local employer be criticized for keeping hundreds of people off welfare rolls?
     The whole anti-Wal-Mart thing really puzzles me, particularly since most of the same liberals who protest against it still shop there and take advantage of its low prices. So does that make them hypocrites or just smart shoppers? Or both?

I really hadn't paid much attention to this anti-Wal-Mart thought process until that liberal bent affected me personally in 2004 when I was working as a reporter-photographer for the Richmond County Daily Journal in Rockingham, NC.
     A new Super Wal-Mart, the company's groceries-plus-merchandise version, was announced for a planned 2005 opening, replacing their merchandise-only store here.
     And shortly after that announcement, the paper's editor, R. Shawn Lewis, assigned all the reporters, including me, a long list of anti-Wal-Mart stories to research and write. We were directed to travel to neighboring communities where Super Wal-Mart stores had already opened to attempt to find anyone and anybody critical of the new store, such as small grocers or other businesses that had been forced to close by the competition.
     All the stories assigned were to seek critical comments and no positive comments were to be sought. Lewis showed us some anti-Wal-Mart stories from AP in other locales as an example on how we were to carry out this campaign.
     I was dismayed at this anti-Wal-Mart campaign we were directed to embark upon and the other reporters were, too, but we all feared for our jobs if we spoke out against it.

Lewis and the paper's general manager, Rick Bacon, had both expressed their views to the staff that a new Super Wal-Mart would drive some of the paper's small advertisers out of business, costing us ad revenue, while the new store would most likely not advertise at all.
     So I decided the diplomatic thing to do was to write a memo to Lewis and Bacon pointing out the possible drawbacks of this campaign, in particular, ticking off the vast majority of our readers here in the conservative South, who were enthusiastic about the opening of the new store.
     If anybody else in Richmond County -- other than Bacon and Lewis -- was against the new Super Wal-Mart, I sure hadn't heard about and I knew a lot of local folks, having lived here and worked for the Journal since 2001. Both Lewis and Bacon had arrived at the paper since I started work there and were “not from around here” as we locals says.
     I wrote the following memo and got no overt response from Lewis. The only comment I ever heard from Bacon was when he growled at me one day shortly after I wrote the memo: "I wish you were as good at your d--- job as you are at writing memos." I could say more about Bacon, but as my Mama taught me, when you can't say something good about someone, keep your mouth shut. 'Nuff said.
    But the deadline to turn in the anti-Wal-Mart stories passed without any comments from management and the campaign died quietly before it ever drew breath publicly.
     I left employ at the Journal in April 2006. The new Super Wal-Mart opened in 2005 and no local grocery stores or other small businesses closed, to my knowledge. Nor did life as we know now it cease to be in Rockingham. In fact, I think it improved somewhat with a better selection of groceries at lower prices. But that's just me. What do I know?
     Here's my memo.

Dec. 16, 2004

As a sailor on lookout duty aboard the good ship Daily Journal, I would be remiss in my duty if I didn’t send an alarm to you about torpedoes I see approaching. We’ve set out to sea to intercept and attack the approaching dreadnought Wal-Mart SuperCenter, who is on her way to our waters and is perceived to be a threat. Her sights are set on all of our grocery advertisers and perhaps some of our other business advertisers. Some of our smaller, slower vessels are vulnerable and may be sunk.
    Our lifeblood of advertising revenue is at stake. The dreadnought has not advertised with us in the past and the loss of even one or two of our existing advertisers threatens our future profitability.
    We have been instructed to be ready to attack at dawn Dec. 26.
    But I am uneasy.
     One of our best news gunners is not at her firing station. She has been promoted to the officer ranks and is on the bridge. Her replacement has been assigned to the sports department, which will not be participating in this attack.
     Furthermore, the lead gunner in our previous attack against Hospice has shipped out.

Yet that is not my chief worry. We left homeport unannounced for this attack and the folks back home probably thought we were going out to greet the approaching Wal-Mart. But we did not come out to greet Wal-Mart. We come to sink her.
     As we left port, the Mayor of Rockingham was working on his welcome speech for Wal-Mart. The band of welcomers even includes strangers from faraway Hamlet.
     If we succeed in our mission, we will not return to cheers, but to an angry crowd armed with shotguns and a rope.
     We might save an advertiser or two, but at what cost to us and to the county’s future?
     Something approaching 100 percent of our readers and subscribers shop at the old Wal-Mart. They are waiting with high anticipation for the arrival of the new Wal-Mart.
     So if we succeed at protecting our advertising revenue, what happens to our circulation revenue? And if angry readers desert us, will our advertisers remain loyal?
     On the other hand, what if we fail in our attack?
     We will have angered our readers by attempting to stop the new Wal-Mart and guaranteed no advertising revenue will ever come to us from the new store. Win or lose, this attack seems to have no good outcome.

May a lowly sailor be permitted to propose an alternate attack plan that is less risky and may allow us to navigate safely between the approaching dreadnought and the folks back home?
     Before the attack is launched, perhaps some opening salvos could feel out the opposition likely from both sides and give us a better feel for the coming war.
     The wire stories about the dangers of Wal-Marts in general could be launched as a preliminary to the main event. An educated reader is always a wiser reader.
     While the wire story series is running, our editorial page could launch the second phase of the war with a pro and con debate over the merits/dangers of a new Wal-Mart.
     I would volunteer to state the pro case. Hundreds of new jobs. Perhaps low-paying, but in the leading child poverty county in the state, who’s picky about new jobs?
     Construction of the new Wal-Mart could even make the adjoining property more attractive to new retail businesses, filling the two empty – soon to be three – buildings where the old Wal-Mart is, plus the defunct Lowe’s hardware and Harris-Teeter stores.

Richmond County could sure use three new major retail players to advertise their wares, plus the several, smaller shops that will reside inside the new Wal-Mart.
     And the new boy on the block could even trigger an advertising war between the existing grocery stores and the new one.
     We always win in those kinds of wars, where we can stand back and say, “Let’s see you and him fight it out. We’ll charge admission.”
     To join the editorial debate, we could ask the mayors of local towns to write guest columns stating their views, plus county officials and the chamber of commerce board.
     Of course most of those folks – it not all – will be on the “pro” side so we’ll have to find someone to state the case for the “con” besides our own officers on deck.
     I can’t think of anyone at the moment we could call on to help us there.

Perhaps that’s a bad sign. Red sky in morning, sailor take warning? Is that red sky flaming torches in the hands of our angry readers? Isn’t that Mayor McLaurin leading the mob?
     There’s been a lot of emphasis lately on economic development, and our attack on the arrival of a huge new retail business could be as popular as a skunk at a picnic.
     But at least the early launch of phases one and two should give us the lay of the land before we begin the main attack.
     It would certainly sort out our friends and enemies, though it seems we would have few of the former and many of the latter.
     At the same time we launch these preliminary attacks, perhaps it would be wise to quietly drop our editorial policy of not mentioning even the name Wal-Mart in our news stories. If our readers should learn of that policy, even as we attack, it would certainly look like a case of outright bias. It could damage our credibility for fair news coverage.
     Only printing bad news about Wal-Mart and not good news, such as their charitable contributions, doesn’t look “fair and balanced.”

If we launch the main attack, the Wal-Mart gag policy should be quietly buried in an unmarked grave and all participants sworn to a vow of secrecy.
     Even if we don’t attack, I believe the gag policy has accomplished nothing to date other than to make us feel a little better about no Wal-Mart advertising. Kill it quietly.
     And should we go forward with our plan for the dawn attack on Dec. 26, I realize us sailors are supposed to salute, say “Aye, Aye, Sir” and man our guns.
     But I, for one, would prefer not to have a byline on the blasts from my guns. A simple “staff report” will suffice. I’d rather not have credit for even being in this battle, as it seems to me to be an attack on the free enterprise system, in which I strongly believe.
     We might even be accused of acting selfishly, against the best interests of the county, as we attempt to drive away a business that almost all others welcome with open arms.
     And perhaps I am a bit cowardly as we go off to war, but I have had the misfortune to be aboard three other newspaper ships that sank beneath the waves as losers in battles.
     I have grown fond of the good ship Daily Journal and do not wish to see her sink, too.

Postscript: The sale of the Richmond County Daily Journal was announced Sept. 1, 2006, to Heartland Publications of Old Saybrook, CT.