Vail Would Be Proud

In Michael Barbano's article "Wal-mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign," he investigates how Wal-Mart is feeding information to interested bloggers to present their point of view. In the piece, Barbano explains how Marshall Manson, a senior account supervisor at Wal-Mart's public relations firm Edelman, would seek out bloggers who were against or for Wal-Mart through their online blogs. Through this he would address their articles, either positively or negatively, and offer future correspondence. If they wanted, he would supply them with pro Wal-Mart information for them to use.

While some may see this as a sneaky, underhanded way to create sympathy for the company, I see this merely as a smart company trying to use the latest forms of communication to defend itself. There is a certain authenticity the blogs appear to have, regardless of the factual nature of their content. An air of truth is associated with them because they are able to be started by anyone. This democratic ideal, while answerable to no authority, is often seen as truthful, and any bias associated would at least be a honest bias.

In fact Wal-Mart is doing what any smart company would do now. Using examples such as General Electric and Microsoft, reaching out to bloggers has been shown to be a smart way to disseminate the information about your company and its products. It would also be unfair to consider such tactics as unethical since these companies are merely using the same forum that their criticizers are. The right to blog can only truly be seen as universal if it applies to all and not just those who have no other venue.

In disseminating information to bloggers to help promote the image of their storage, I believe Wal-Mart would make AT&T's Theodore Vail proud.

We Asked for Sweatshops!

How many of us boycott stores that abuse their workers' rights?

Before you lie and answer "yes I do," let me make on point clear, that most of us, are not concerned about workers' rights, and working conditions when we are shopping. In fact, we boycott stores that are "over-priced." However, tables turn when we work for such companies that abuse workers' rights and do not pay legal minimum wage.

To blame Wal-Mart for opening sweatshops, and not treating their workers right, is not the main issue, for it is a side effect of a larger and a more serious issue.

Lisa Featherstone's "wal-mart P.R War," is a great article, and provides quiet details about the rising accusations about how Wal-Mart is abusing its workers. However, there are several other corporations, such as Wal-Mart, that are establishing sweatshops around the world. This practise cannot be corrected by dealing with these companies' P.R. For they are hired to speak on behalf of the corporation. In fact, many of us attend anti-sweatshops campaigns, and anti-wal-mart seminars, but besides these "feel good about yourself," activities, we don't really sit and analyze the real issue.

The issue is that, our government is taking the concept of laissez faire too literally, and because of this, corporations like Wal-mart are able to do what they want to do. How many of us ever stop and wonder if the item that we are buying at a dollar store, is really worth a dollar? For there are many items in dollar stores whose net value is not really $1.00. However, those items are provided to us, after abusing the rights of a worker in Haiti, India, or china. These workers are paid around $1.00 - $2.00 a day, to mass produce our daily items and materials that we buy and use. If these items are produced in a factory in which workers are paid minimum wage, and their rights are respected, dollar stores would first go out of business, and then of course, the price of the cheap items at Wal-Mart and many other large stores would sharply increase.

We must understand, that fighting with Wal-Mart and its PR, is not the real solution. Even if we fight and correct Wal-mart and convince them to treat their workers in a respected and legal manner, we would still be left with many other companies that abuse their workers. We must go deeper into the issue, and try to eradicate the rising "sweatshops."

"It's obvious that the sweatshop problem has been increasing and expanding in this country since the 1980s, and it's out of control," says Barbara Briggs, senior associate at the New York-based National Labor Committee, which monitors workers' rights in the United States and in U.S. factories overseas. "

The above statement clearly states the rising sweatshops, and to decrease the number, we must return to our government, ask them to install strict regulatory policies for these corporations, in which their net profit, workers' salary and everything else must be monitored. For many conservatives, this will be a shocking and dangerous solution, but for too long have we lived with the "hands-off" theory, and apparently it has not worked from Wall Street to Wal-Mart.

Instead of fighting Wal-mart, we must fight for a congressional solution so that in one campaign we are able to eliminate ALL sweatshops.

Sell the whistleblowers fake whistles

An article entitled “Wal-Mart’s P.R. War” describes what Wal-Mart is up against. They are being accused of “Violating child labor laws; locking workers into stores overnight; mooching off taxpayers; disregarding local zoning laws; mistreating immigrant janitors; abusing young Bangladeshi women; paying poverty-level wages in the United States; and destroying small-town America”. To say the least, Wall-Mart is up against a lot. (Featherstone, “Wal-Mart’s P.R. War”)

To me, it seems like they are entering a war they cannot win. Any married man would tell Wall-Mart there are some battles just not worth fighting; I think this might be one of them. Wall-Mart needs to save its image and sometimes a simple apology and a promise to make necessary improvements goes a lot further then playing the defensive role.

With all the money they are throwing at defending their image, why not hire someone to make calculated changes that look good to the public but don’t go against Wal-Marts goals. An example might be to give employees a better insurance plan but hire more part time teenage employees that don’t require insurance. They would be giving the public what it wants without actually giving it to them.

The public may become more open to Wal-Mart if they think their opinion is most important to Wal-Mart. Sometimes real change, even if its not really changing is all one needs for their image.

The Problem With Wal--Walmart

“ One of the most organized, most sophisticated , most expensive corporate campaigns ever launched against a single company.” This was one of the comments that an executive of Wal-Mart said regarding all the negative propaganda about the company. However, the question is whether the executive is telling the truth or not? One of the many articles and documentaries that has been done against Wal-Mart tells a different story. In an article written by Liza Featherstone explain that the company was and is doing the following:
“Firing whistleblowers. Discriminating against women ( and most recently, black truck drivers). Violating child labor laws. Locking workers into stores overnight. Mooching off taxpayers. Disregarding local zoning laws. Mistreating immigrant janitors. Abusing young Bangladeshi women. Paying poverty level wages in the United States. Destroying small—town America. “
Obviously the executive was trying to justify the company that he works for. Many of the things that has been said about Wal—Mart is true. For instance the company is destroying (small town America) of course this is true. When the company opens a huge store in a small town the majority of the business suffer as a result of having a giant company coming into their town. Why ? Well the reason is that most of this small business lose a lot of their client because Wal—Mart has it all. In addition, most of the people decide to go to shop to Wal—Mart because the small owner cannot compete with their prices. Many times, Wal—Mart offers special and lower price product that average consumer is attracted too. And so a lot of this businesses are shot down because it is impossible to compete with this giant corporation.
Another problem with Wal—Mart is that they hired a lot of immigrants and pay them lower wages. The reason for hiring undocumented immigrant is because the company tries to pay this people very low and saved as money as possible. This is clearly an abuse to the immigrant community. This is just two example of the problems with this company. I wonder to myself how far is willing to go in keep abusing their power and if they are going to stop the abuse?

Two sides to Walmart?

Laura and Jim are a couple who go from Las Vegas to Georgia in an RV and blog about their journey. Being a mobile home, they need somewhere to park their RV when they need a break from driving or want to go to sleep. Walmart allows them to park in their lots for free.

"Every Wal-Mart employee that Laura and Jim run into, from store clerks to photogenic executives, absolutely loves to work at the store" (Pallavi).

Isn't that a breath of fresh air to see that after reading an article where Liza Fetherstone describes Walmart's conduct to it's employees as,

"Firing whistle blowers. Discriminating against women (and, most recently, black truck drivers). Violating child labor laws. Locking workers into stores overnight. Mooching off tax payers. Disregarding local zoning laws. Mistreating immigrant janitors. Abusing young Bangladeshi women. Paying poverty-level wages in the United States. Destroying small town America".

What are we to believe? The alligations made by Liza Fetherstone are so harsh that we can only think that the story of Jim and Laura is just a stunt conjured up by Walmart. Johnathan Reese goes to saying, "Walmart hired fake people". Truth is that Jim and Laura are indeed real people but the public is being told the HALF truth in their story. Although, it is very cute to think that Walmart helped this couple a great deal and welcomed them with open arms we can't be fooled.

"Wake Up, Walmart" is a website dedicated to changing the company for the better. With Walmart being such a part of the retail economy despite such vicious things being said about the company it is necessary for them to repair it's image greatly.

Sources:

Lisa Featherstone, "Wal-Mart's P.R. war," Salon, 2005.

Pallavi Gogoi, "Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story," BW, 2006.

Wal-Mart Blogs

Blogging has become one of the best ways to network with other individuals, mainstream or global about the same ideas and interest on topics. Wal-Mart, is one of the largest economic public corporation devoted to meeting the everyday needs of Americans. Walmart has been critized by many community social groups. In its efforts to improve their standing in the eyes of the media, Wal-Mart has made themselves completely accesible to society with a media upgrade, i. e. internet blogging.

Micheal Barbaro says,

"Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters."

Companies of all stripes are using blogs to help shape public opinion. Wal-Mart fears because blogging is based on opinion and rarely facts, social commmunity group opinions would sway the minds of consumers. With blogging Wal-Mart hopes to better the image and to displace themselves of the criticized low wages and health benefits.

Mona Williams, a company spokeswoman, states

Wal-Mart began working with bloggers in late 2005 "as part of our overall effort to tell our story." "As more and more Americans go to the Internet to get information from varied, credible, trusted sources, Wal-Mart is committed to participating in that online conversation," she said.

Wal-Mart: Know What Your Getting Into..

"On Private Web Site, Wal-Mart Chief Talks Tough"
By Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro

Wal-Mart is the largest, most used establishment of its kind. It plays a huge role in the United States. Although there are many good sides to this establishment, there area a lot of thing that go on behind the scenes that would shock and appall its customers. In this article from the New York Times, the authors exposed some of the true views of management from Wal-Mart. They had access to one of their private websites in which some of the executives would post questions and answers. The only thing about this site is that everyday people do not have access to it.

Greenhouse and Barbaro expose one of the postings from a Wal-Mart representitive, Mr. Scott. In a question about benefits for their hard working retirees Scott's answer was very insensitive. "Quite honestly, this environment isn't for everyone. There are people who would say, 'I'm sorry, but you should take the risk and take billions of dollars out of earnings and put this in retiree health benefits and let's see what happens to the company.' If you feel that way, then you as a manager should look for a company where you can do those kinds of things."

Companies like Wal-Mart that bring in billions of dollars a year in revenue should not be able to treat their hard working employees like this. This basically shows how much they care about their workers. And though the establishment does alot for communities all over this country, their downside is the mistreatment of their employees. Without their employees there would be no Wal-Mart. So why not show a little appreciation?

Wal-Mart and the Fight For Health-Care

“The New War Over Wal-Mart” by Joshua Green

As I began reading “The New War Over Wal-Mart,” I assumed that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company, does not provide health-care benefits to its employees due to corporate greed and a lack of concern for its minimum wage workers.  However, as I continued reading I learned that the problem of uninsured workers does not fall on Wal-Mart alone, but rather can be blamed on the escalating costs of health-care, itself, which is hurting workers and businesses alike.

As a leading entity, Wal-Mart has achieved much success by maintaining rigid cost control.  Now it holds the power to help balance U.S. inflation.  However, because of its massive influence, it is held to a greater standard of accountability and must demonstrate good business practice and ethics.  Nonetheless, Wal-Mart is widely criticized for outsourcing U.S. manufacturing jobs which drives down wages and benefits.  It is also condemned for its health care policy which covers less than half of its workers, thus forcing the government to carry this financial strain by caring for tens of thousands of its employees and their children who are Medicaid recipients. 

Labor unions are a major force of opposition who fight against Wal-mart such as the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and Wal-mart Watch which is funded by Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  With a budget of $5 million a year, Wal-Mart Watch has pushed anti-Wal-Mart laws in different states, released damaging internal documents, and exposed its exploitation of government health plans.

Andy Stern, the president of SEIU, describe his reasons of hostility against the company: “Why go after Wal-Mart? Because Wal-Mart is the GM of our era.  Whatever business practices they adopt have huge influence across other American business.”  He went on to say that “My goal is to get Wal-Mart’s leadership out there in traffic and holler, ‘We can no longer compete in the global economy when health care is factored into the cost of our products.’ If Wal-Mart’s CEO, Lee Scott, were to come out and say, ‘We need a national health-care system that works for everyone,’ then it’s a whole new ball game.”

Sterns main objective is to get Wal-Mart to change its practices and use its economical pull for the good of the people and labor.  He wishes to coax Wal-Mart into supporting a national health-care policy.  In turn, he hopes that this will incite support from other companies that emulate Wal-Mart and, thus, pressure the federal government to transform health-care.  Stern’s drive for national health-care is due to the fact that he is just as impacted by the high price of health-care as are businesses.

During the 20^th century, companies were in favor of employer-provided health benefits in order to compete for workers.  However, today businesses such as Wal-Mart can’t afford to provide their workers with health-care and have therefore, resorted to using unethical methods to avoid these costs such as discrimination against hiring “unhealthy” people.  In effect, the controversy over the health benefits provided by Wal-Mart needs to be refocused on collaborating with Wal-Mart to help fight against the health-care industry.

 My questions for the Wal-Mart spokesperson are:

1. We are currently facing a huge problem in providing American workers with health-care.  What stance and role has Wal-Mart enacted upon to help fix this national crisis?
   
2. Should Wal-Mart be responsible in providing health-care to its employees due to the rising cost of health care spending, or should government infringe upon the escalating cost of health-care?
   

Wal-Blogosphere

"Firing whistleblowers. Discriminating against women (and, most recently, black truck drivers). Violating child labor laws. Locking workers into stores overnight. Mooching off taxpayers. Disregarding local zoning laws. Mistreating immigrant janitors. Abusing young Bangladeshi women. Paying poverty-level wages in the United States. Destroying small-town America....It's Wal-Mart, of course. "

This line from the New York Times article, "Wal-Mart's P.S. war", Lisa Featherstone gives a few very strong reasons as to why Wal-Mart has such a bad reputation. These few examples can make the average consumer feel as if Wal-Mart is not worthy of their dollars. It is for this reason that I understand why Wal-Mart goes through such great lengths to restore their tarnished image.

In a 2006 New York Times article, "Wal-Mart enlists bloggers in P.R. campaign", Michael Barbaro explains how Wal-Mart uses one of the most influencial technological advances, blogging, to better their image.

"Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters."

Barbaro revealed how Wal-Mart uses bloggers as a means to get the message out that Wal-Mart isn't so bad. From reading Featherstone's article it made me realize why Wal-Mart would go to such great lengths to better their image, because the American public has many reasons as to why they shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart.

Everyday low prices, Everyday low ethics

During these tough times that many Americans are going through, we have to conserve our money wisely. Families are making sure that they spend their money on neccessities such as groceries and clothes. That is what makes Wal-Mart extremely successful. Wal-Mart sells every item that an individual can image. The prices are so low that it is nearly impossible for any other corporation to compete. This might be a good marketing tool, but Wal-Mart employees are not enjoying the "benefits" of working for one of the largest corporations in America.

"The aim, the activists agree, is to change the company's entire business model. What Wal-Mart's abuses have in common, they say, is a disregard for the public interest in a single-minded pursuit of the bottom line. Low labor costs and a disregard for the law have been central to the company's way of doing business. A Wal-Mart that paid its employees generously, offered decent worker healthcare and was considerate of its community neighbors -- the critics' major demands -- would not be Wal-Mart: It would be, essentially, a bunch of stores. Other than unionized workers, it is possible that no one has ever put such concerted pressure on a single American company, let alone one so large, to so fundamentally change its operations. " (Lisa Featherstone, Wal-Mart's P.R War)

Even the largest corporations need the "little people" for it to function. Without cashiers, grocery clerks, deli workers and retail stock workers, Wal-Mart would not be able to function. Wal-Mart uses its low price policy and convenience to persuade people that Wal-Mart is a "friendly neighborhood friend". American citizens tend to forget that the employees of Wal-Mart are struggling in these tough economic times. If Wal-Mart were to go out of business, it could have effect on both the Wal-Mart employees and the Wal-Mart shoppers.

"I want my Al Jazeera!"

“If American officials were to claim that Al Jazeera is against them, their Middle Eastern counterparts likely would reply, "Join the club." According to Yousef Al Shouly, a Palestinian senior producer for Al Jazeera, Western leaders are now absorbing the lesson that Arab heads of state learned over the past five years: "Use Al Jazeera to spread your views; use Al Jazeera to your own benefit." When there is controversy in a country, he says, his station allows both "the government and the opposition to give their point of view. Al Jazeera gives both sides a chance. Al Jazeera has not changed its policy. Governments have changed their policy" to adapt to the network, he says.”

Before its popularity and growth Arab leaders were comfortable with state and local broadcasting. But they wanted to give true journalism no matter who they offended. Choosing between satisfying governments or viewers, Al Jazeera chose the promised future and reported the “unstained truth” as they would like to pride themselves on doing.

“When the network aired a program probing Algeria's civil war, the government in Algiers shut off power, prompting Algerians to flood phone lines with cries of "I want my Al Jazeera!"

Al Jazeera put itself into an uninviting position for advertisers who don’t associate with conflict-filled issues. The commercial industry has a tendency to be more opinionated in the Middle East as oppose to other parts of the democratic world.

“Al Ali says that while other Arab stations earn about 90 percent of their revenue from advertising, commercials account for only about 40 percent of Al Jazeera's revenues. The rest comes from renting out equipment, selling programming and videotapes, and cable subscription fees. The station now operates, he says, without government subsidies.”



Since its creation al-Jazeera has been an extremely controversial network, with the goal of broadcasting only the truth and not sugar coating it. The viewers of al-Jazeera find the coverage of the American War on Iraq to be fair displaying both sides of the war. As the only 24 hour Arab station in the world there is no competition. Not only covering the war but Arab life in detail, always on the scene and ready to serve its viewers.

(“Inside Al Jazeera”:The World's Most Controversial TV Station Rick Zednik)

-EF

New Technology leads to New Propaganda

With the outlet of new television stations springing up all over the globe it is much easier to spread a single message to thousands of viewers. Al Jazerra "Claims a global audience of 35 Million Arabic-speaking viewers, may not officially be the Osama bin Laden Channel -- but he is clearly the star" (Ajami 1). This television station which means "the Peninsula" has spread propaganda all throughout the land. Anti-Americanism along with it has become a dangerous weapon to dismantle the coalition objective and influences young Arabic citizens to rise up against the western way of life. These messages of propaganda can and are being used to influence Afghanis as well as other radical middle eastern people to join against the crusade known as Jihad. Their messages of anti-Americanism is a powerful recruiting tool and this network has no doubt been an outlet for many radicals to shift or sway public opinion in their own direction.

This is not an old trick, and this is being done in our country as well. Many would say fox news is geared toward Republican viewers more so than democratic because of Rupert Murdoch's influence he too can play the part in shifting public opinion geared towards American viewers as we see below he is even quoted as saying that he "tried" to shift public opinion about the war


"Al Jazeera's reporters are similarly adept at riling up the viewer. A fiercely opinionated group, most are either pan-Arabists -- nationalists of a leftist bent committed to the idea of a single nation across the many frontiers of the Arab world." This is not so much a war but a war on ideas as Ajami puts it shifting public opinion takes skill and most importantly evidence. Evidence that people can hear and see for themselves. It is a lot different when someone receives news through another person, as opposed to actually seeing pictures and hearing the horrible sounds that war brings to any nation.

The World's News Leader

I choose the article, ''The Monopoly is A Memory", because being an avid watcher of CNN its interesting to see how they have grown into the most watched international news network. Stomping there way pass the other news giants such as, CBS, ABC, and NBC and overseas competition Al Jazeera.

After our discussions of the novel, "Second Front, Censorship and Propaganda, In The Gulf War,'' by John MacArthur this article shows that however the use of censorship was mandatory, but it did keep CNN from revealing the truths of the Gulf War.

" Iraqi government and CNN used each other during the Gulf War in 1991 to the mutual benefit of both''. (Elisabeth Jenson, LATimes)

CNN's ratings sky rocketed with millions of viewers tuning in on the war. Years later CNN still hold its ground breaking ratings especially during the 2008 election. CNN earned the 68th prestigious Peabody Award for political coverage in 2008.