No kidding. Wal-Mart is now offering a half million dollars in journalism scholarships. Part of an ongoing campaign to clean-up their image, spokeperson Mona Williams says they’re “especially sensitive to fair and balanced coverage” after finding themselves in the spotlight. Here’s an excerpt from a NYTimes article on the subject:

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/business/16walmart.html?th=&pagewanted=print

I can speak more to the issue of Wal-Mart’s campaign to clean-up their image with the Starbuck’s-drinking, Volvo-driving, Morning Edition set (they’ve done market research and know these things). The ethical problems surrounding Wal-Mart’s underwriting are being discussed in public radio circles, though much more critically by people at the member stations who have no control over NPR’s underwriting choices (though local stations have their own underwriting that can pose conflicts as well). The language of the Wal-Mart underwriting is upsetting a lot of people. They read in the papers about Wal-Mart locking employees in the store at night, Class-action sexual discrimination lawsuits, and child labor law violations (just to name a few), or they themselves are fighting a difficult battle to keep a mega-store out of their community. But then they hear on their trusted local public station that Wal-Mart is providing “opportunities” to millions of Americans. What message does that send to listeners and station members? What does it mean if people aren’t bothered by it?

The language of public broadcast underwriting has changed dramatically over the last few years. Remember when you used to just hear the name, address, or web site of a company or local business? Took about ten seconds either before or after a program. Now some annoucements are 30 seconds or more, and the lengthy descriptions and catch-phrases make the “spots” sound more like advertisements, making the programming sound more commercial. Why would stations risk sounding more commercial? Because companies don’t think it’s worth their money otherwise.

There’s lots of interesting discussions to have on this issue, especially as listenership for public radio increases (which it has dramatically since September 11th) and stations consider adding more local programming in order to compete with satellite radio. Does the potential exist for corporations to influence the content public broadcasting? Does Wal-Mart’s money discourage NPR from reporting on the company’s scandals, or “soften” the reporting? Will these scholarship recipients grow into national journalists whose fond memories of how the Walton’s helped them in their time of need could influence potential reporting on the subject? Or are people smarter than that? Less impressionable? Who’s the smart one here? Whose airwaves are they anyway?

Catherine Komp, Media Section Editor

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 18th, 2004 at 8:57 am by Keith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.