Edelman Offers an Explanation for Wal-Marting Across America

I’ve been late to the table on this Wal-Mart discussion, although my good friend Tris Hussey has been right on top of the coverage.

The way I understand it, the blogosphere is up in arms because of a blog called Wal-Marting Across America. The blog told the story of a couple who were traveling around the country staying the night in various Wal-Mart parking lots and talking to people about Wal-Mart. The problem was that they didn’t properly disclose that their sponsor was Working Families for Wal-Mart, an organization that was started to counter the anti-Wal-Mart rhetoric of union-funded groups Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch.

In a post dated October 12, 2006, Wal-Marting blogger Laura wrote an explanation of how the story got started.

Our blog was about the people we met and the stories they told. As a storyteller, I should have done a better job beginning at the beginning with our tale.

Yes, Laura, you should have been more forthcoming about your association with Wal-Mart PR firm Edelman. You should have been more forthcoming about the fact that Working Families for Wal-Mart was paying for your trip. If you had done that, you might have just become the first even moderately unscripted voice to represent Wal-Mart in the blogosphere.

As it is, we can chalk this one up as a major screw-up for an otherwise blog-savvy public relations firm. Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel have both been forthcoming on this (although it took them long enough).

I think it was the great philosopher Big Bird who said that “everyone makes mistakes.” Admitting them publicly is a difficult thing, and I admire Edelman for being able to stick their necks out.

And in the interests of self-promotion, I should mention that these are the kinds of real-world lessons that we’ll analyze and discuss at our upcoming Blog Business Summit conference, which will have some representatives from Edelman in attendance.