Jackson Free Press

Corporate America wants to cash in this holiday season with a highly visible campaign to support small businesses. Gannett Co. Inc., owner of The Clarion-Ledger, joined this effort with full force.

If this reminds you of Gannett's "ShopLocal" pretensions, you are not the only one. Here in Jackson, The Clarion-Ledger uses this trademarked phrase to push chain stores, many based out of state with owners far, far away. It's as if Gannett went through the trouble of trademarking common language without understanding what it really means.

American Express is a founding partner in Small Business Saturday, and its promotion is dominant on The Clarion-Ledger website. "Shopping Main Street; Discover Small Businesses on November 26" is a linked page with a map of a dozen participating businesses.

"Just like buying locally grown produce helps local farmers, buying from your local retailer can directly help your town's economy and local charities," Jayne O'Donnell of USA Today says in a video clip posted on the site.

But then she also warns shoppers of the dangers of shopping locally in another video: "While smaller retailers do try to be competitive, it can be impossible to match the prices the big national chains charge."

She adds that it is harder to make exchanges at small stores.

Gannett even started a Jackson Shopping Main Street page on Facebook. The first post is from Oct. 27. The fonts and some other graphic elements mimic the Obama presidential campaign material. An image of street signs is the main art, but the connection to The Clarion-Ledger is not clear. Besides links to a couple of stories, no mention is made of Gannett or The Clarion-Ledger, although all the links on the Twitter feed refer back to The Clarion-Ledger.

While distancing its brand from the Jackson Shopping Main Street promotion, Gannett seems to be hiding, almost pretending that the promotion is a small and locally owned initiative.

It's enough to make you wonder if the real intent is to make sure the mythological Black Friday is as frenzied as the corporate world dreams it should be. Often touted as the largest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving is when big-box stores such as Walmart, Target and Best Buy have sales so enticing, shoppers will show up early no matter how cold it is to fight over a ridiculously low-priced TV set.

And if consumers are pushed hard to spend money, time and energy on Black Friday, they might need to recuperate on Shopping Main Street Saturday.

Television stations are reporting the Black Friday sales during news segments. The story "Black Friday Brings Jobs to the Metro" airing this week on WJTV, the CBS affiliate station in Jackson, begins with a rundown of what time sales would start at Walmart, Kohl's and Target.

"Pre-Black Friday sales are already going on at Target and some other area stores," the anchor reported. "The real sales, of course, begin on Thanksgiving at midnight."

Some Americans won't shop at all this Friday as they observe Buy Nothing Day. It's the 20th year that Adbusters magazine is promoting this anti-consumerism campaign. The simple suggestion is that instead of shopping with a maddening crowd for token things you may not really need, stay home and relax, reflect and reconsider your Christmas gift list. Perhaps, after a day of not even buying gas for the car or a candy bar from a vending machine, shoppers might wake up refreshed on Saturday and buy things from neighbors who own small businesses.

Adbusters also gets the credit for Occupy Wall Street, a real-world meme that resonates with frustrated folks in many cities, including Jackson. Those impatient with the Occupiers are using their First Amendment rights to protest about the protesters.

"In Mississippi—Smith Park in downtown Jackson, in particular—there is little sense of urgency or sense of purpose," Ross Reily wrote Nov. 17 in the Dolan Co.-owned Mississippi Business Journal. Dolan (NYSE: DM), based in Minneapolis, owns media outlets in 19 cities in the United States.

The headline on Reily's Editor's Notebook entry reads "FAT, LAZY AND STUPID: Mississippi's 99 percenters just sit, smoke and squander opportunities." The tags on the online post include: economic development, racism, social issues, socialism and stupidity. Yes, the MBJ really tagged it with "stupidity."

Reily's irritation with Smith Park occupiers stems from what he perceives as a lack of zeal and vigor for a cause. This isn't that different from observations the JFP editorial board made last month. We agreed the general vagueness of the movement needed to focus on specific causes and propose solutions.

But we wouldn't label the protesters as stupid and lazy. Or fat.

As local media outlets cover the hustle and bustle of Black Friday, expect to see pictures of consumers occupying sidewalks and parking lots before stores open. Cameramen will watch like hunters in deer season for building tension and potential riots. It is unlikely, however, that a police officer will casually and calmly paint the shoppers with pepper spray or that the media will call the crowd ugly names.