CBS Detroit 4-part series on Amway: news or PR?

Earlier this week MiBiz included in their weekly e-blast of news on Michigan Manufacturing a link to a series of stories done on Amway by the Detroit CBS affiliate WWJTV.

The Detroit CBS affiliate did a 4-part series for their program Michigan Matters. Each segment was roughly 5 minutes in length and were essentially promotional pieces for the privately owned company.

Segment one dealt with the beginnings of the company, that in many ways looked like the promotional videos that Amway has produced themselves about the founding of the company. Steve Van Andel and Doug DeVos were interviewed for this segment and both talked about their earliest memories of the business that was started by their dads.

The first segment also included information about how the company has evolved and now does 90% of its business outside of the United States, with $9.2 billion in sales for 2011.  Near the end of that segment Michigan Governor Rick Snyder refers to Amway as “a real standup player,” which has helped his administration to look to China for future markets for Michigan companies.

In the second segment the CBS reporter simply asks DeVos and Van Andel, “How does your business work?” Both DeVos and Vandel claim it is all about having a good product to sell and for distributors to find new customers. The current board chair and President of Amway failed to mentioned that the wealth that is generated for the company is predicated on getting other people to sell the products for them, while the two families and the higher level distributors make most of the profits. This is what many critics refer to as a pyramid scheme.

At one point Van Andel says that not everyone is “wired” to be a distributor and that those who don’t do well are not to blame. In fact, Van Andel says no one is to blame, which is a message that differs from those who felt cheated by the company, some of which can be found in Steve Butterfield’s book Amway: The Cult of Free Enterprise.

The second segment also includes a lengthy portion in one of the Ada manufacturing plants where viewers hear from the plant manager who enthusiastically talks about what they do there. This segment also addresses the company’s China controversy in 2006 when Dick DeVos ran for Governor and the Democratic Party made an issue of the company’s business deals in that country. The news reporter responds that other companies like GM and Ford did the same thing so why pick on Amway? This was not only another example of how the CBS station in Detroit was unwilling to critically look at Amway, it was just bad journalism since none of the claims made by Amway executives were ever challenged in the series.

The third segment highlighted the company’s recent business partnership with the Detroit Red Wings, where the Amway company logo will be prominently displayed at the arena where the NHL team plays. This fits in with the DeVos family’s venture into owning sports teams locally and abroad like the NBA Orlando Magic. This segment featured an executive with the Detroit Red Wings who talked about how this partnership was just one more way for the Amway business to give back to the community. Again, there were no other perspectives provided, such as the critique that left sportswriter Dave Zirin offers about the DeVos Family’s ownership of sports teams in his groundbreaking book, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining The Games We Love.

The third segment concludes with a mention of the company’s One by One Campaign and their money making project with Cascade Engineering to sell a water filtering system for third world countries which are struggling to have access to clean water. What this portion of the segment does not address is what are the root causes of people not having access to clean water in those countries. Instead, the segment makes it seem as if Amway was partnering with Cascade Engineering purely out of a humanitarian interest.

The last segment also features the generosity of Amway and the DeVos and Van Andel families. In this segment the news reporter says that millions have been given in West Michigan. The segment mentions ArtPrize and how many young entrepreneurs have been the recipients of the company’s money. One young entrepreneur (at least that is how they refer to him), is Rob Bliss. Bliss says that Amway is, “letting people like him have the money so they can do what they are passionate about.” Bliss also mentions that the DeVos Foundation gave him $6,000 for his water slide project from 2 years ago. The news story failed to mention that Bliss has not fully paid the City of Grand Rapids for previous projects and that his events are primarily a means to bring money to the downtown businesses, some of which are owned by the DeVos family.

In the end, this 4-part segment was such a fluff piece that had no investigative journalism aspect to it at all. The CBS reporter did not mention or pursue the tremendous political influence the company and its founding families have had locally and nationally for decades, nor did they address some of their foundation funding efforts, which include anti-gay campaigns, anti-union campaigns, privatizing schools and funding right wing entities such as the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. With such a series, TV viewers on the eastside of the state will have just as distorted a view of the Amway company as TV news viewers on this side of the state.