In an age in which corporate malfeasance abounds, too much of the mainstream media has been unaccountably lax in covering the abuses of big business. Luckily for us–and unluckily for would-be white-collar criminals–one indispensable journal has kept a watchful eye on corporations for the last quarter century.
In 1980, Multinational Monitor was founded by Ralph Nader and a rag-tag band of socially conscious reporters who felt that corporate power was “undergoing a transformation, mutating into something more fundamentally global in scope and profoundly more dangerous.” Published nine times a year, the Monitor is not glamorous or immediately recognizable outside of activist and political media circles. But its hard-hitting stories on corporate environmental abuse, health and safety violations, and exploitation of developing nations have long held the feet of executives to the fire.
The Monitor‘s most widely publicized feature in recent years has been its annual list of the “Top Ten Worst Corporations,” compiled by Robert Weissman (who also serves as editor) and Russell Mokhiber of Corporate Crime Reporter. This past year, Coca-Cola, Merck, and–you guessed it–Wal-Mart all made the list, which spread through the blogosphere like wildfire and caused migraines for corporate PR firms.
We’re also big fans of the Monitor‘s bi-monthly Lawrence Summers Memorial Award–named after the loose-lipped Harvard president and former Treasury Secretary, who once suggested that polluting developing nations was a fiscally responsible strategy (among other ridiculous things). A recent recipient was SeaCode: a company, according to the Monitor, “which plans on locating a cruise ship in international waters, just off of the California coast, and out of reach of US labor, employment and immigration law, to house a software development company.”
It’s no wonder that hundreds of advocacy groups rely on the Monitor‘s consistently bold investigative reporting. “I think they are the only reliable source of information on global corporations,” says John Cavanaugh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. “It’s amazing to me that they’re the only magazine that is explicitly devoted to the issue of the excess of corporate power–which is probably the greatest challenge to democracy in the world.”
Happy 25th Multinational Monitor. Keep giving ‘em hell.
We also want to hear from you. Please let us know if you have a sweet victory you think we should cover by e-mailing [email protected].
Co-written by Sam Graham-Felsen, a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker and blogger (www.boldprint.net) living in Brooklyn.
