Why Did Canadian Media Help Loblaw Promote Their PR Stunt?: Yesterday morning, Loblaw announced — through an email to customers from company president and chairman, Galen Weston, a corporate statement, and a press release — that they’d be freezing price caps until Jan. 31, 2023, on items from no name, one of their many food brands.

The rationale offered by Weston for the move was clever. He pointed
out that inflation on food costs has been skyrocketing, making families
uncertain about how they’ll be able to afford groceries. He portrayed
the price freeze as a way to help them out. Naturally, a skeptical
person would reply to Weston by asking why his corporation set the
prices so high in the first place. And to this, Weston preemptively
argues that, “Maddeningly, much of this is out of our control,” adding
that the corporation has supposedly challenged any “unfair price
increases” but that “the truth is, most are reasonable.” As such, Weston
can give the impression that his company has been held hostage by
outside forces, but is now taking a personal hit because they care about
the well being of Canadians so much.

This is absolutely not the case. Luckily, we have a whole media
apparatus that can provide critical reporting on these claims, helping
readers make sense of what’s really going on, right? In theory, yes. In
practice, we’re not so fortunate. And the coverage of Weston’s
announcement proves it, with Canadian media helping one of the richest
families and largest corporations in the country to get free PR.