[GOPJ]

The reason Walmart traditionally had trouble with newspapers - and the MSM by default - was they would come into a small town - drive out many ‘mom and pops’ - the small business people that keep small newspapers alive - and then they DIDN'T advertise.

Walmart didn't destroy small town newspapers on purpose, it was an unintentional by-product of their low cost philosophy. In recent years they've started running ads - flyer's - in papers and much of the problem has gone away. There's still bad blood from the old Sam Walton days, but it's going away.

[Ramius]

- was they would come into a small town - drive out many ‘mom and pops’ -

I think that's mostly a bad rap, too. The so-called "mom and pop" stores in smaller towns were driven out of business long ago, but by previous chain stores like Ace, JC Penney and others. Walmart's competitors have always been the other chain stores. Those mom-and-pops that people are thinking about haven't really existed since the fifties.