Wal-Mart to lift ban on selling Pensacola News Journal

Published Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Wal-Mart to lift ban on selling Pensacola News Journal

By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
PENSACOLA, Fla.
Wal-Mart is lifting a local manager's ban on selling the Pensacola News Journal at area stores, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. It was imposed in response to a column the manager considered derogatory to the retailer.

Columnist Mark O'Brien wrote in June 19 editions that Pensacola should "be more than the Wal-Mart kind of town we're becoming - cheap and comfy on the surface, lots of unhappiness and hidden costs underneath."

O'Brien then cited a New York Times report that Georgia's health care program included more than 10,000 children of Wal-Mart workers, costing taxpayers nearly $10 million a year. He noted the Times report was cited in "The World is Flat," a new book by Thomas Friedman about the global economy.

"We did make an error in judgment by removing the papers from our stores," Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Sharon Weber said in an e-mail from company headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. "They should be available in our stores by the end of the week."
(snip/...)

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/APF/507261076

I don't know if "censorious" is a word. But it gets my meaning across.

What did Wallyworld think? They would use extortion to try get the writer fired and the paper would be silent?