I might understand it if Wal-Mart said I ought to fire Mark because what he said wasn’t accurate. But that isn’t the case. Mark accurately reported that there are 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees in a health-care program that is costing Georgia taxpayers nearly $10 million a year.
Shouldn’t we talk about that? —Randy Hammer —Here’s why you can’t buy the News Journal at Wal-Mart (Pensacola News Journal)
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Journalists do have an obligation to tell the whole story, and that means sometimes they have to ask questions that make people uncomfortable. But I'm not sure it's defensible to say that "only negative news comes out". It may seem that way, in general, because nobody would read a headline like "School Bus Brings Children Home Safely" or "Former Postal Worker Sends Home-made Brownies to Former Co-Workers." But the issue here is that a local Wal-Mart manager refused to sell copies of a newspaper that contained an article that presented Wal-Mart in a bad light.
That's censorship, and people should know about it.
Note: the decision of this one local manager shouldn't be projected onto Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters.
OK, Another rant.
My step-father works at Wal-Mart at nights, from 9:30pm to 6:30-7:00 am. If it wasn't for the taxpayers, we would have never found out that he had cancer.
As Dr. Jerz knows, that's a touchy subject for me. Sitting here right, looking back on what happened (which I'll post in a moment), tears are starting to swell in my eyes.
Basically, my half brother and I went to work with my dad one bright and sunny day. We were in the back, eating lunch and I was reading the newspaper. You see, even in middle school-which for this was when this had happened, I was very into politics and the world around me, anyways..my brother went to go find my dad to remind him that Steven (my little brother, he was about 10-11 at the time) needed a new jockstrap and mouth guard for his peewee football practice. The next I know, Steven comes running back to me, tears in his eyes. He buries his head into my chest. I ask him what's wrong.
"Dad hit his head on a TV that he was trying to get down. He had to go to the hospital because he got knocked out. Their calling mom."
You see my little brother is VERY attached to his dad, as am I. My stepdad, Joe, has been there for me more than my own dad. So we sat and waited for my mom. The next thing we know, we're in a car with our grandfather going to Jeanette Memorial Hospital to make sure our father is ok.
We wait...and we wait..to make a long story short, the doctor comes out and says that our dad will be alright, but that he thinks our dad might have cancer. That sent my world into a downward spiral, and Steven didn't even know what to do--because every time he heard the word "cancer" in school, it was always preceded or followed by "death". This scared him.
Luckily, our father is alive and well, but he wouldn't be if it werent for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.
Sure, the taxpayers might pay into his health insurance--but in the end isn't worth it? I mean it saved one life--and in the end anyways, as I discoverd by asking him--he pays into the health insurance too, since technically he is a taxpayer.
I am not saying that the man who wrote the article was wrong to write--no, it was a story that should have been told. I am also not saying Wal-Mart is right or wrong in getting a rid of the newspaper--their could have been other reasons. What I am saying is, get the whole story. Don't get what a study says, mainly because those ar done just to get statistics, not true-to-life stories about people. Get the WHOLE truth!
My favorite line Mr. Hammer wrote:
"When we stop listening to people on the other side of the fence, when we try to silence and even punish people for thinking differently than we do and raising facts and figures we don't like, well, we won't be red, white and blue anymore."
-Randy Hammer, Pensacola News Journal
People pull that "un-American" thing with me all the time. But, really the only "un-American" thing is to stifle justice and progress. People should matter more than gaining or saving a buck. I think this situation greatly proves that this particular scenario isn't doing anyone justice.