I’ll probably regret this, but…
I did read the article mostly because the mention of quite a few closures noted for NC yet anecdotally it seems you can’t swing a dead cat in this state without hitting a Walmart. The article struck me as carefully worded to the point of being odd. The 10,000 employees were “affected” (not laid off). Stores were closed but no mention of the net change as stores were opened elsewhere.
Could be every store closed (except the temporary closure due to fire damage) was a shrinkage of net aggregate floor space for Walmart in the states listed and all 10,000 affected employees were laid off. Could be they reduced store quantity, consolidated multiple small store territories to more Super Walmarts, and increased net floor space so the 10,000 affected employees were affected by having to drive to a different location in the same area to report to work along with their 2,000 new co-workers who were added. Could be some of those closed stores just moved to a different building nearby for myriad reasons. Quite possibly somewhere in the middle, but no way to tell from that article.
It’s like me looking at my personal budget and realizing I spent $80,000 last year so I must have a spending crisis. Well I sure did if I had $40,000 income but if my income was $150,000 that $80k isn’t looking so bad. Closures tell only part of the story. So is the article shoddy reporting, reporting information that’s available and omitting information because it simply isn’t available, or is there an intentional omission and careful wording to imply a false message without the consequences of explicit falsity? Don’t know, don’t care in this instance. There are at least 9 Walmarts within a 20 minute drive from my place so shutting one down wouldn’t really hurt my feelings.
The article rather clearly is attempting to convey the message that Walmart is reducing retail outlets in some markets and reducing staffing as a result. That might be 100% accurate. But the way the author worded it appears carefully crafted to the point I know very little additional substantive information after reading the article than I did before (negligible in both cases). If I didn’t see so many “news” articles like that over recent years, heavily slanted one way or another to the point much of it would be more appropriate for the editorial section, I probably wouldn’t notice it so much. And that’s not a “MSM” argument although they’re guilty of it. I’m not sure what news outlet doesn’t routinely report stories with an agenda these days.