Hate Starbucks? Need to find new reasons - these old ones won't work anymore
The Insider: Oregon weekly's analysis is happy news for Starbucks
STARBUCKS HATERS IN PORTLAND: Willamette Week -- Portland's alternative weekly newspaper -- currently features a cover story with a photograph of a Starbucks barista splattered with mud or some other type of brown goop.
But the story, reported by Taylor Clark and titled "Thoroughly Starbucked," is no hatchet job. In fact, it explores why the Seattle coffee retailer gets no respect in Portland. Citing recent incidents, including the unsuccessful firebombing of one store, Clark attempts to debunk some common myths held by Portland residents about the coffee chain. Among those analyzed are the widely held beliefs that Starbucks destroys independent coffeehouses, pays farmers slave wages and mistreats employees.
"But take a hard look at these claims, and one comes to the politically incorrect conclusion that the company doesn't deserve much of its bad rep," Clark writes
The story, which can be found online, touched a nerve with some readers. In the newspaper's online forum, one reader called it a "whitewash article." Another said the alternative weekly "deserve(s) all the hate mail you'll get for this one."
I read the first page of the Willamette Week's article - good points, with solid facts to back them up. I like the first "charge": STARBUCKS KILLS ITS LOCALLY OWNED COMPETITORS. Verdict? NOT GUILTY.
It's so nice to see idiots required to use their brains to figure out new reasons to hate.
My perfect world? People who don't like Starbucks say "I just don't like Starbucks" - and then just shut up.