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News :: Miscellaneous |
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WILL Ch. 12 To Air "Store Wars: When Walmart Comes to Town" Tonight! at 6pm |
Current rating: 0 |
by Stacy Mitchell
(No verified email address) |
10 Jun 2001
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PBS stations nationwide will broadcast "Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town." It will be shown locally on WILL, Channel 12 on Sunday, June 10 at 6pm. The new documentary by filmmaker Micha Peled follows the one-year conflict that polarizes Ashland, Virginia when Wal-Mart seeks to build a superstore on the edge of town. |
Ashland is picturesque community of 7,200 north of Richmond with a traditional Main Street and numerous locally owned businesses. Wal-Mart's proposed store would be larger than all of Ashland's existing retail businesses combined.
A group of citizens known as the Pink Flamingos launch a grassroots effort to defeat the development. They gather research, hold protest rallies, blanket the town with lawn signs, and lobby city officials. Many have little experience with organizing and local politics. "I feel as if we are about to compete in the Olympics but we've just learned the sport," notes one activist.
Wal-Mart meanwhile conducts a sophisticated and aggressive public relations campaign, buying multiple full-page ads in the newspaper, sending a video to town officials about the company's supposed success in nearby Tappahannock, and flying in a community relations executive from corporate headquarters.
On more than one occasion Wal-Mart is caught providing inaccurate and dishonest information. Bogus economic data in one of the company's ads is falsely attributed to a University of Massachusetts professor, whose research in fact found that Wal-Mart is detrimental to local economies. When town officials visit Tappahannock, instead of the thriving local economy portrayed in Wal-Mart's video, they find failing local businesses.
The film skillfully captures many of the economic and social implications of losing small, locally owned businesses to global corporations, as well as the fault lines that often divide communities struggling over big box retail development.
**** The "Store Wars" broadcast provides an excellent opportunity to draw attention to this issue in your own community, and to educate neighbors, elected officials, and the local media. Consider alerting local officials and other key constituencies to the upcoming broadcast, organizing a joint screening and follow-up public discussion, or sending educational materials and information about the fight in your community to local reporters. ****
A press release about the film can be found on the Independent Television Service (ITVS) web site at http://www.itvs.org
This originally appeared in The Home Town Advantage Bulletin (http://www.newrules.org/hta/index.htm), a bimonthly email newsletter from the New Rules Project (http://www.newrules.org) of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. |
See also:
http://www.newrules.org
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