A guy was caught stealing $950 in stuff from Walgreens. It led to 309 news stories.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

David Weigel Retweeted

A guy was caught stealing $950 in stuff from Walgreens. It led to 309 news stories.

Walgreens was caught stealing $4.5 million from employees. It led to 1 story.

Wage theft is bigger than all robberies combined but you wouldn't know it watching the news

Link to tweet

He's referring to this:

DIVE BRIEF

Walgreens to settle California bag check suit for $4.5M

Published Dec. 16, 2020

By Lisa Burden
Contributor

{snip}

It probably got more than one story back then.

[onecaliberal]

1. You pretty much know nothing watching the news.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Oh, I had to read that twice. I get it now. Thanks for writing. NT

[whathehell]

5. Overstated.

[Nittersing]

2. For folks not familiar with Dan Price

From his Twitter bio:

"6 years ago today I raised my company's min wage to $70k. Fox News called me a socialist whose employees would be on bread lines.

Since then our revenue tripled, we're a Harvard Business School case study & our employees had a 10x boom in homes bought.

Always invest in people."

[Grins]

4. Saw this earlier. It's from last June.

[nilram]

9. The article was written on November 29.

It's not about the property theft that happened in June at a Walgreens, or about the $4.5 million fine that Walgreens paid about a year ago, it's a criticism of the media coverage since those events happened. It argues that the wage theft that affects tens of thousands of Walgreens employees should get more coverage than a property theft at one of their outlets.

[AlexSFCA]

6. you are confusing criminal activity with civil litigation

Criminal activity always gets more news coverage.

[nilram]

8. That's exactly the point and what the article was about.

"In the United States, only certain types of theft are newsworthy."

A wage theft, which happens to be called a "civil" offense but affected virtually all Walmart employees, gets more news coverage than a property theft that affected one outlet of one large corporation.

It's a critique of the news media, not a shrugging acceptance.

[Voltaire2]

7. Exactly.

Also: thousands of humans got robbed today and it didn’t make the news.

The Moral Panic here and elsewhere over the manufactured Flash Mob box store shoplifting crisis is pathetic and racist.

We’ve obviously learned nothing.

[nilram]

10. The lack of coverage of wage theft by large corporations is intensely classist.