ABCNews.com Hypes Boycott of Whole Foods, Dismisses CEO's Conservative 'Reform' Ideas

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's recent Wall Street Journal op-ed may well have been "in bad taste", ABCNews.com would have its readers believe (see screen cap at right).

Emily Friedman devoted an August 14 story mainly to liberal Whole Foods patrons huffing and puffing in disgust about Mackey's op-ed:

Joshua has been taking the bus to his local Whole Foods in New York City every five days for the past two years. This week, he said he'll go elsewhere to fulfill his fresh vegetable and organic produce needs. 

"I will never shop there again," vowed Joshua, a 45-year-old blogger, who asked that his last name not be published.

Like many of his fellow health food fanatics, Joshua said he will no longer patronize the store after learning about Whole Foods Market Inc.'s CEO John Mackey's views on health care reform, which were made public this week in an op-ed piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Michael Lent, another Whole Foods enthusiast in Long Beach, Calif., told ABCNews.com that he, too, will turn to other organic groceries for his weekly shopping list.

"I'm boycotting [Whole Foods] because all Americans need health care," said Lent, 33, who used to visit his local Whole Foods "several times a week."

Friedman did find other customers who didn't care about Mackey's politics or actually agreed with him, but buried those kudos farther into her story.

What's more, when describing Mackey's August 11 op-ed, Friedman dismissively treated his eight market-friendly policy prescriptions by enclosing the word "reforms" in quote marks:

In his op-ed, "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare," published Tuesday, Mackey criticized President Barack Obama's health care plan.

Mackey provided eight "reforms" he argued the U.S. can do to improve health care without increasing the deficit. He suggested that tax forms be revised to "make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance."

Mackey also called for a move toward "less government control and more individual empowerment" instead of "a massive new health care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits."