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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Walmart

1. March 28, 2011 02:40 PM

   NYT Follows Walmart’s Weird OSHA Fight

   By Ryan Chittum

   The New York Times reported this weekend that a judge upheld $7,000 fine OSHA levied against Walmart for the trampling death of a worker a couple of years ago. Ho-hum. But what's interesting is how hard Walmart has fought it: Wal-Mart had mounted an aggressive defense to overturn the $7,000 fine, causing OSHA officials to complain that the company had...

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2. November 19, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: hustled, Brauchli fallout, NYT’s Walmart impact

   ProPublica connects the dots on a former Countrywide executive named in a DOJ lawsuit

   By Ryan Chittum

   ProPublica's Paul Kiel reports (with an assist from TheStreet) that the JPMorgan Chase executive in charge of its program to pay foreclosure-scandal victims was implicated by the feds last month in their fraud case against Countrywide. The executive, Rebecca Mairone, worked at Countrywide and Bank of America from 2006 until earlier this year, when she left for JPMorgan Chase, according...

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3. November 11, 2011 07:22 PM

   Audit Notes: The Sovereign Risk Genie, Regulatory Complexity, Wal-Mart and Bank Fees

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Economist's Greg Ip says the European crisis, at its core, is not about Silvio Berlusconi or even Italian debt levels, which haven't risen that much. It's about the introduction of the sovereign-risk calculation in markets that investors had been giving an EU free ride: What changed is not Italy’s political or economic fundamentals but how investors perceive Italian debt....

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4. February 16, 2012 04:08 PM

   Blodget Asks a Taboo Question on Wages and Profits

   By Ryan Chittum

   I like this Henry Blodget thought experiment on how much more major companies could afford to compensate their ill-paid employees. It shows pretty clearly just how much shareholders and executives benefit at the expense of the workers who make their profits possible. First, consider the macro context: Something has definitely changed in how workers are paid and how capital is...

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5. April 11, 2012 12:21 PM

   Farm to Table

   Tracie McMillan reports on the American way of eating

   By David Riedel

   The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table | By Tracie McMillan | Scribner | 336 pages, $25.00 Irritating. That’s the word that comes to mind when reflecting on Tracie McMillan’s The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table. Irritating because McMillan goes undercover in order...

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6. April 25, 2012 06:59 AM

   NYT Obscures Wal-Mart, EDF Link

   Article overlooks green group’s close ties to Walton Family Foundation

   By Curtis Brainard

   A recent New York Times article about the Environmental Defense Fund’s efforts to help Wal-Mart “cut waste” painted an incomplete picture of the group’s relationship with the retail giant, offering an instructive lesson in “green business” coverage in the process. The article, which ran on the front of the paper’s business section on April 13, described Wal-Mart’s “mixed degree of...

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7. June 15, 2011 08:18 PM

   Organizing via Facebook in the Age of Union-Busting

   By Ryan Chittum

   The New York Times's Steven Greenhouse has an interesting report today on a group of Walmart workers who are organizing—just not in the traditional sense. The vehemently anti-union Walmart crushes any attempt to unionize (at least in the U.S. and Canada), so a group called OUR Walmart is starting a social networking presence intended to pressure Walmart for better wages...

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8. April 17, 2012 12:14 PM

   Stories I’d Like to See

   Cheney’s heart, CVS and privacy, and Walmart’s guns

   By Steven Brill

   In his weekly “Stories I’d Like to See” column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com. 1. Who gives out hearts? In exploring whether former vice-president Cheney might have received preferential treatment when he got a heart transplant recently, many of the reporters covering...

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9. May 8, 2012 12:11 PM

   Stories I’d like to see

   Homeland loses focus, ditching the filibuster, unions that own big business

   By Steven Brill

   In his weekly “Stories I’d Like to See” column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com. 1. Protecting the Homeland….in New Zealand Is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano completely on the sidelines? And has she not gotten the memo about limiting government travel? How...

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10. May 22, 2012 10:52 AM

    Stories I’d like to see

    Drachma redux, Hoffa’s killers, besting JPMorgan

    By Steven Brill

    In his weekly “Stories I’d Like to See” column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com. 1. Printing drachmas? What actually will happen if Greece leaves the euro zone and goes back to its own currency? How would that work? Is there a printing...

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11. April 23, 2012 06:38 PM

    The Times’s Extraordinary Wal-Mart Investigation

    By Ryan Chittum

    David Barstow's epic Wal-Mart investigation in the Sunday New York Times has already lopped $10 billion off the company's market value ($8 billion if you assume Wal-Mart would have been down 1 percent like the rest of the market today). Rest assured, though, the reverberations from this piece have just begun to be felt in Bentonville. The Times gives Barstow...

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12. June 9, 2011 12:38 PM

    Walmart’s Unions

    They do exist—outside the U.S.—as a Washington Post story shows

    By Ryan Chittum

    It's well known that Walmart is viciously anti-union. It's not much known is that the company is much more accomodative to organized labor in other countries that have more labor-friendly policies. The Washington Post is good to report on that difference, showing that Walmart stores have unions in the UK, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, China, and South Africa. Why does...

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