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News :: Globalization : Media : Political-Economy |
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Buying Influence Among the Intelligentisia: Wal-Mart Tries to Shine Its Image by Supporting Public Broadcasting |
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by Constance L. Hays
(No verified email address) |
17 Aug 2004
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Joining fellow corporate criminal Archer-Daniels-Midland, Wal-Mart is attempting to polish its union-busting, monopolistic image by buying time on public broadcasting. |
Wal-Mart, stung by criticism of its labor practices, expansion plans and other business tactics, is turning to public radio, public television and even journalists in training to try to improve its image.
So far this year, the company has become a sponsor on National Public Radio, where recorded messages promote its stores. It has underwritten a popular talk show, "Tavis Smiley," accompanied by similar promotional messages, on a public television station in California.
And earlier this month, Wal-Mart announced plans to award $500,000 in scholarships to minority students at journalism programs around the country, including Howard University, University of Southern California and Columbia University.
Wal-Mart has not supported any of those organizations in the past. But as the company outgrows its rural roots and moves into suburbs and cities, it is encountering more resistance from people whose traditions and values may be different from those of Wal-Mart's historic customers.
The company has been faulted for its selective approach toward the publications that it sells, which has included banning three men's magazines and ordering plastic covers to conceal what it considered "uncomfortable" headlines on several women's titles, including Glamour and Redbook. It has refused to sell music albums with what it deems offensive lyrics, and manufacturers acknowledge producing sanitized versions of popular CD's in order to maintain a presence in the giant retailer's stores.
Mona Williams, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the journalism scholarships were "a first of their kind" for the retailer, and came about because of the recent publicity around its business practices.
"We've really been in the spotlight and I think that's made us especially sensitive to the need for balanced coverage," Ms. Williams said. "It doesn't matter if the subject is Wal-Mart or something else. You just aren't going to have that unless different perspectives are represented." Without diversity, she added, "the result can be narrower thinking as news events are presented to the public."
Influencing that presentation may be at the heart of the effort, although Ms. Williams said there was "no hidden agenda here" and added that it probably would have been done even if Wal-Mart had not come under scrutiny.
John Siegenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, said, "Wal-Mart is doing what most corporations do: when they feel pain, they try to salve the wound." He predicted that "they may get less out of it than they expect to," but he added that "if it helps minority journalism, I hope they salve it with more than half a million dollars."
As for public radio, Ms. Williams said the company sought the demographic that National Public Radio listeners represent. The goal is to "reach community leaders and help them understand the value that we bring to their areas."
"We want those folks to know that having a Wal-Mart in their town is a good thing," she said.
A spokeswoman for NPR, Jenny Lawhorn, said its audience consisted of "intelligent and well-educated people" who "tend to be business leaders and tend to be engaged in the civic process." According to a recent survey, about 56 percent of them are Wal-Mart shoppers, she said, compared with 66 percent of the general population.
Wooing community leaders fits well into Wal-Mart's plans. The company has stumbled in recent months against opposition to its stores. In April, its effort to win voter support for a store in the Inglewood, Calif., suburb of Los Angeles was defeated after the company took the unusual step of putting the issue on the ballot. An attempt to build a store in Chicago was rejected, although a second store was approved, while plans to open a store in downtown New Orleans have been slowed by opposition as well.
The company has also been criticized by labor unions, which say Wal-Mart fights their organizing efforts. In California, unionized supermarket workers staged a lengthy strike earlier this year seeking benefits that stores said they could not afford because they needed to compete with Wal-Mart.
Neither Wal-Mart nor NPR would reveal what it pays as an NPR sponsor. The contract began Feb. 16 and extends until January. Total corporate financing is expected to reach $30 million this year, Ms. Lawhorn said. As part of its NPR arrangement, Wal-Mart is described several ways when it is mentioned as an underwriter on the air. The descriptions include the following: "Wal-Mart. Providing jobs and opportunities for millions of Americans of all ages and all walks of life." Another says the company is "bringing communities job opportunities, goods and services and support for neighborhood programs."
NPR has received letters and e-mail messages from listeners since the Wal-Mart underwriting information began to be broadcast. One listener wrote: "What a disappointment! Maybe next it will be Halliburton." The role of Wal-Mart was taken up by NPR's ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, who wrote in his NPR.org online column, "Wal-Mart symbolizes values that some listeners believe to be antithetical to the values of public radio" and suggested that "one way that NPR could prove that underwriting has no effect on its integrity is for NPR to produce more hard-hitting interviews, more investigative reporting and yes, even more scandalizing satires."
The company also underwrites "Tavis Smiley," a talk show on KCET, the public television station in Los Angeles. The program began in January and Wal-Mart was on board immediately, a spokesman for the show, Joel Brokaw, said. In late March, Mr. Smiley interviewed Wal-Mart's chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., who is seldom made available to reporters. After disclosing twice that Wal-Mart sponsored the show, Mr. Smiley went on to ask his guest about Wal-Mart's image problems. Mr. Brokaw said he did not know how much Wal-Mart paid to be a sponsor.
The journalism plan evolved separately, Ms. Williams said. Ten journalism schools will receive $50,000 each, which will be distributed as $2,500 scholarships to four students at each school. The scholarships will be awarded in each student's junior year and can be renewed for the senior year as well.
The recipients chosen include Arizona State University and Syracuse University. Administrators at the universities said the selections came as a complete surprise. In most cases, corporate donations for scholarships are unheard of, the administrators said, unless the corporation is involved in the news business or another communications medium like advertising.
"It's kind of a reach to expect companies that don't see themselves as part of the media world to support journalism education," said Steve Doig, the interim director of the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State, where some scholarships have been provided by newspaper companies like Gannett.
Mr. Doig, a former reporter for the Miami Herald, said that he was aware of Wal-Mart's practices with magazines but that did not prevent him from accepting the scholarship money.
"It's not the American Nazi Party," he said. "I don't see Wal-Mart as problematic enough to miss the opportunity they are offering to several of our students."
He added: "Both the banning of certain magazines and the decision to give money to journalism schools are calculated behaviors and not necessarily contrary. I don't support banning newspapers or any particular publication, but a company has the right to decide what it wants to sell."
Wal-Mart also plans to include the scholarship students at next year's annual shareholder meeting, Ms. Williams said.
"They will be guests in the audience, and we think that would be a great educational experience for them," she said. They may also have tours of the company's offices in Bentonville, Ark., as well as a warehouse nearby.
Tom Bowers, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said the move was "saying to the public, look at the good thing we're doing." North Carolina was not one of the journalism schools designated by Wal-Mart for scholarships, but the university awards about $100,000, some from media companies, to students every year, Mr. Bowers said.
"The people who win our scholarships typically don't go to any national meetings and aren't put on display by these corporate donors," he said. "We certainly make sure there is no quid pro quo on these. The only obligation is to write them a letter and thank them for the scholarship. The student isn't expected to do anything for the company."
Of the programs chosen, only the University of Southern California's Annenberg School has received corporate funding from nonmedia companies in the past. A spokesman, Geoffrey Baum, said the school had gotten money from Nissan and General Motors, as well as from Raytheon and Home Depot for public-relations programs. Some journalism programs are in states where Wal-Mart has opened a large number of stores. The University of Florida and the University of Texas made the list; those states have nearly 600 of Wal-Mart's 3,596 stores, according to Wal-Mart.
Jannette L. Dates, dean of Howard University's John H. Johnson School of Communications, hopes that Wal-Mart's scholarship will encourage other nonmedia companies to contribute.
"I'm going to go after some of those others and say 'See, Wal-Mart did this, why don't you?' " she said.
Note these corrections to the above article:
An article in Business Day yesterday about efforts by Wal-Mart to improve its image incorrectly described "Tavis Smiley," a popular talk show that it underwrites on public television. While it is produced by KCET in Los Angeles, the show is also broadcast by other stations across the country. The article also misspelled the name of the founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, who commented on Wal-Mart's plans to award $500,000 in scholarships to minority students. He is John Seigenthaler, not Siegenthaler.
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