Dispatched With Prejudice
If you had the opportunity to read the New York Times article of May 29 about the U.S. Sugar Company ESOP, you might have experienced one of two reactions, depending on whether you know anything about ESOPs or not. If you are from the ESOP community, presumably you reacted to the article with some degree of outrage, as did I, over the clear implication that ESOPs are anti-employee. If you know little or nothing about ESOPs, you probably reacted with a similar sense of outrage, over the sheer existence of such plans that could be so harmful to working people. I found it interesting that the article might conjure similar responses from its readers, but for very different reasons. I’ve been thinking about that article, a lot.
What I’ve been thinking about is the fine line that exists between provocative, “hard-hitting” journalism (as I suspect the author intended this to be), and prejudicial muckraking. Maybe I should be feeling embarrassed to be writing about such a topic, since it’s one that people already talk and write about with great frequency. The boundaries and style of journalistic reporting are often assailed by those being written about and my hurt feelings are nothing new under the sun. Perhaps I’m just reacting more strongly because the message hits close to home, and to the Foldcraft Co. ESOP that I regard so highly. But think about this with me for a moment.
Let’s just say that The New York Times runs an article about a shooting that took place in the city, where the shooter was a racial minority, or of a religious minority. The article describes the brutality of the attack in significant detail. The article provides the name of the suspect, his photo, his minority status and further, it carries lengthy opinion about the guilt of the suspect and how his actions reflect on the entirety of his minority colleagues. Now, imagine the reactions from the members of the suspect’s family and others of his ethnicity or religious preference. An article of this nature would draw contempt, discredit, and the likely dismissal of its author in order to prevent serious legal or cultural backlash against the newspaper.
I’m having a hard time seeing the difference between the fictional example above and the May 29 article that seems to have already determined that 1.) U.S. Sugar is guilty of something; 2.) all ESOPs are conducted in precisely the same fashion as the one at U.S. Sugar; 3.) ESOPs are exclusively used to get more out of employee productivity; and 4.) all ESOPs are therefore evil creations designed to strip employee-owners of their retirement benefits and their dignity. In my view, this is prejudicial reporting at best, drawing conclusions about ESOPs at large from the experience of one company. “If one is bad, they must all be bad. They’re all alike.”
No one likes or deserves to be judged upon the actions of others, and it’s no different within the ESOP community. Perhaps, it is no different within the journalistic community, either, such as when one journalist is discovered to have plagiarized someone else’s work. There’s far too much good, values-based work going on within the ESOP community to allow one example to color all ESOPs. We’re ALL owed more than that, whether reading about it from inside the ESOP world or from without….
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