Word: mobilize
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Mobil snubs the Journal...
Relations between business and the press are often prickly, but they are seldom worse than those between Mobil Oil and the Wall Street Journal. In a story about the oil business last month, the paper gave short shrift to a piece of news that the company thought was important-the closing of a Mobil refinery in West Germany-and devoted a separate story to a report that Percy Pyne, the son-in-law of Mobil Chairman Rawleigh Warner Jr., would benefit financially from the company's construction of a $300 million office tower in Chicago. As a result, Mobil...
...Mobil's boycott is the latest chapter in a long-running feud between the oil company and the paper. In a story published in April 1983 the Journal claimed that the son of William Tavoulareas, then president of Mobil, had sold ships to the company, thus raising questions about the ethics of such family deals. In strong letters to Journal editors, Herbert Schmertz, Mobil's vice president for public affairs, accused the paper of stealing company documents and conducting a "vendetta against Mobil...
Journal editors said last week that Mobil's move would not hinder their reporting efforts. Said Managing Editor Norman Pearlstine: "The fact that we don't always print articles the way Herb Schmertz or his staff writes press releases should come as no surprise to anybody. We'll certainly continue to ask Mobil for comment when it is appropriate. It is an important company...
While sympathetic to Mobil, other executives wonder if the company gains anything by the action. Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca, who has complained about the Journal's coverage of his company, maintains that silence is not the solution. Said he: "You can't do it in the corporate world. You have to be accessible, and you have got to tell the truth." Says Exxon Spokesman Philip Wetz: "You have to communicate to have a chance of getting your point of view across...