The Sherwin-Williams reporting Cleveland should read
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Cleveland.com's recent series on Sherwin-Williams and lead paint should be more of a local talker than it is.
Why it matters: The five-part series, authored by editor Chris Quinn, provides a rich and detailed history of the local company's industrial innovation and corporate governance while shining a spotlight on its complicity in the lead poisoning crisis.
- It demonstrates conclusively, with the aid of internal documents, that Sherwin-Williams knew lead paint was poisonous decades before federal regulation — but continued to market and sell it anyway.
What they're saying: Quinn tackled the topic in part as a corrective to years of inaction, he wrote.
- His own publication exposed the extent of lead poisoning in local children but rarely looked for perpetrators beyond "old houses, bad landlords, failed inspections and weak municipal action."
- "Did we ignore the obvious because [Sherwin-Williams] is such an important employer? A civic donor? A longtime advertiser? A source of the region's pride?"
Zoom in: The series targets not only Sherwin-Williams but state and federal lawmakers, who repeatedly sided with corporate interests and their powerful lobbyists over unwitting homeowners.
- A congressional proposal to label lead paint cans with a skull and crossbones failed in 1910, for example, even as European countries were banning lead-based paints.
- Nearly a century later, the Ohio Senate passed legislation preventing legal action against paint companies on public nuisance grounds, resulting in the dismissal of multiple lawsuits.
The other side: Sherwin-Williams spokesperson Julie Young told Axios that Sherwin-Williams sent Quinn a detailed statement in response to his questions on July 9 but that none of its content was published by Cleveland.com.
- "The series contained several inaccuracies," Young said, noting that Sherwin-Williams would be publishing a rebuttal.
Between the lines: After laying out this important history, Quinn absolves the local paint giant of any financial responsibility for solving the crisis it helped create.
- He argues those responsible are long dead, and going after the current corporation would be neither fair nor pragmatic.
Instead, he proposes that Sherwin-Williams capitalize on its history of visionary leadership and tap a rising-star executive to help Cleveland rid itself of lead paint once and for all.
- This "dynamo" would work alongside a board of directors that would include, in Quinn's vision, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam.
💭 My thought bubble: Much of the series labors to expose how corporations have invested enormous resources in advancing their own interests at the expense of consumers, which is why the last installment felt like such a departure.
- And the pro sports owners who Quinn champions for "[getting] things done" are billionaires actively engaged in the extraction of massive public subsidies for their stadiums.
- Why would they be involved?
Flashback: Local journalist Roldo Bartimole wrote in 2001 that Cleveland's history of corporate responsibility was "tainted with a 'rich man's burden' flavor," and Quinn's proposal feels indebted to that lineage.
The bottom line: The series was nevertheless illuminating as a historical guide and cathartic as an exposé of Sherwin-Williams' culpability.