Hyping how "Whole Foods devotees" are "lash[ing] out" at CEO John Mackey, Washington Post's Ylan Q. Mui paid particular attention to one "Mark Rosenthal, a playwright living in Massachusetts who founded the Boycott Whole Foods group a few days ago." At time of publication, Rosenthal's group had "nearly 14,000 members." Mackey, you may recall, penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed laying out his market-based ideas for health care reform.
Since then the group has jumped to 16,000+ members, or just 1/7th of the 113,444 "fans" of Whole Foods on Facebook. The grocery chain also has 1.2 million followers on Twitter compared to 247 followers of a Twitter page devoted to the Whole Foods boycott.
Even so, Mui failed to provide readers of her 19-paragraph story with a single shopper who agreed with Mackey or one who didn't but thought a boycott ludicrous, something that could easily be done by chatting with a shopper at one of the numerous stores the chain has in the Washington, D.C. area. Indeed, in an August 17 story, Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate WJLA found some Whole Foods shoppers who shrugged off the leftist boycott:
ARLINGTON, Va. - In the continuing fight over health care reform, some angry customers are talking about boycotting Whole Foods stores.
The business at Clarendon's Whole Foods doesn't show the impact but a Facebook group protesting organic food giant Whole Foods just might.[...]
"Even if I disagreed with him, it wouldn't stop me from shopping at Whole Foods," said customer Chris Cabert.
"I don't agree with him, but that's not going to stop me from shopping at Whole Foods," added customer Aaron Bork.
