PressEthic

In class, we've discussed various papers' positions on Wal-mart and whether or not the corporation receives biased coverage. In today's Times, John Tierney writes a remarkably pro-Wal-mart op-ed, asking, "Has any organization in the world lifted more people out of poverty than Wal-Mart?"

He compares the work of the conglomerate to that of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunusand and the Grameen Bank (TimesSelect subscription required to view article).

But there’s a limit to how much money villagers can make selling eggs to one another — a thatched ceiling, as Michael Strong calls it. Strong, the head of Flow, a nonprofit group promoting entrepreneurship abroad, is a fan of the Grameen Bank, but he figures that villagers can lift themselves out of poverty much faster by getting a job in a factory.

The best way for third world villagers to tap “the vast pipeline of wealth from the developed world,” he argued in a recent TCSDaily.com article, is to sell their products to the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart. Strong challenged anyone to name an organization that is doing more to alleviate third world poverty than Wal-Mart.

...

Most “sweatshop” jobs — even ones paying just $2 per day — provide enough to lift a worker above the poverty level, and often far above it, according to a study of 10 Asian and Latin American countries by Benjamin Powell and David Skarbek.

Tierney's article provides an interesting foil to today's front page article on Wal-mart's impending expansion to China. While the article itself is not negative, the headline alone ("Wal-Mart Said to Be Acquiring Chain in China") is enough for an increasingly anti-Walmart public to role their eyes at the perpetual expansion of this corporation.

Whether or not one agrees with Tierney's argument, it is laudable that the Times is providing a variety of voices on a subject that is often covered very one-dimensionally.