It was frustrating to watch the way the "mainstream news media" fell all over themselves to report on Walmart employees' Black Friday rallies from the Corporate-generated Walmart press releases.
Did anyone notice how quickly Walmart reported "best sales ever" for Black Friday, before other retail chains even had their sales figures?
Reading newspaper articles and watching news, it was clear Walmart had prepared to issue press releases and play the publicity game to their well-paid advantage. The corporate strategy: talk about how excellent the sales were and paint the rallies as failed strikes that didn't effect business. And, of course, feed the press releases to the print, online and television news media who receive millions of dollars in advertising revenue from Walmart.
More than pickets and strikes, they were rallies and demonstrations that included many people who didn't work for Walmart but supported their employees. And, it wasn't about influencing Thanksgiving or Black Friday sales figures, it was about making people aware of the poverty-level pay and lack of benefits that, along with being forced to work on Thanksgiving day, paint a poor picture of Walmart as a whole.
Leave it to Jon Stewart to pull it all together perfectly: