“At last”. Well, maybe. But surely the ’sphere needs to settle down a little, doesn’t it, Mathew? A few other things did happen today, and yesterday and so on. This isn’t exactly the Tylenol poison scare. Seems to me a lot of ink has been spilled on not a very big deal. I mean, what’s going to happen when something really dramatic happens - like someone getting a splinter?

OK, a little hyperbole to make a point….

Fair enough, Rob — although that’s a little like saying to the cop who stops you for speeding: “Shouldn’t you be out catching real criminals?” :-) There’s no question that the blogosphere overreacts and the echoes bounce off each other until they become deafening sometimes.

But I think — maybe because I’m in the media as well as being a blogger — that while this little tempest in a teapot may not be all that important in itself, it is instructive for what it implies (or at least could imply) for the future of blog/media/PR relations.

Maybe, maybe not. But - and I want to avoid being too harsh here - I do think it’s an object lesson in the ’sphere’s ultimately herd-like inability to maintain a sense of perspective. Yet another incident that has me wondering about the ’sphere’s ability to actually amount to something when (if?) it grows up - apropos of another issue you canvassed today.

Rob: I have to say I totally disagree.

This story has been circulating for over a week. I’ve posted on it twice myself … but only after hitting Techmeme and a kind of critical mass of bloggers did Edelman respond.

I think that if only a few blogs would have picked it up, there would have been no response at all … which is why Steve, in his comments, says that he didn’t want to put up a “checking it out, will post later” post.

We needed the firestorm to get the attention of the giant.

Mathew,

There’s something not quite right about this apology from Richard Edelman.

What is he acknowledging or apologizing for exactly? Here’s the relevant part of the post:

“…our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset.”

What there ever an issue about the identity of the bloggers? Or was the issue a lack of disclosure about them being paid shills?

Sorry, this doesn’t strike me as a real mea culpa. They’re still trying to be cute. I can see Richard Edelman sniggering to himself about this.

Dominic, I don’t know Richard personally, but from what I know of him I don’t think he is sniggering to himself about anything. I think he is genuinely sorry and that he actually cares about Edelman’s behaviour in this case and what it says about their commitment to being open and honest.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. In any case, I would personally rather not go attributing ulterior motives or reading nefarious meanings into his apology without a little bit more to go on.

[...] Edelman takes ownership of Wal-Mart blunder [...]

Edelman was pushed into making some kind of apology by blog posts like your earlier one.

This wasn’t something they did because they care about doing the right thing. The delay in replying was all about them hoping it would blow over. If they did care about doing the right thing, then they would never have come up with the Wal-Mart flog in the first place, and someone from the company would have said something much earlier.

Richard Edelman cares alright, but only because his firm got caught and it was damaging their reputation and a client relationship.

I maintain that the error was not failing to identify the bloggers, as Edelman claims, but a whole host of other things, ranging from nepotism to downright dishonesty. Nepotism relates to the brother at Edelman organizing the trip for his sister at the client’s expense. You and I wouldn’t get that.

Your comment seems to me to be rather naive, especially coming from a journalist. Oh, don’t get into a huff about what I just said, think about it.

Edelman takes ownership of Wal-Mart blunder via Mathew Ingram: mathewingram.com/work October 16th, 2006 at 20:50

Don’t worry, I won’t get into a huff — I don’t even know how to get into a huff :-)

But I’d like to know how you can be so sure that Edelman was pressured into making an apology, or that the delay was them hoping it would blow over. I think it’s equally likely that they were trying to figure out how best to respond, and/or trying to deal with Wal-Mart in some way.

And I’m not sure how you know that they don’t care about doing the right thing. Do you know Richard Edelman or anyone else at the firm? I’m as skeptical as the next guy, especially about PR companies — as any journalist is. But I’d rather not jump to negative conclusions without a bit more to go on.

That said, you missed an opportunity here to show what the future of PR and communications will look like when done right. The way this went down has old-school written all over it. ~G~Discussion: Mathew Ingram, Mark Evans, Robert Scoble and BL Ochman, among others. Technorati Tags: blogs, dinosaurs, walmart, edelman

I have no more insight on the itnernal workings at Edelman than you do. But I do know that their response, or lack thereof, wasn’t the way people with a good sense of ethics react.

What did they need to figure out? Whether what they did was right or wrong? How long did that take everyone who looked at the situation, including yourself, to decide?

A few minutes.

So how do you explain three days before there was a response from Edelman? Either they are very slow thinkers and have great difficulty telling right from wrong, or they were doing something else.

My view, based on my experience both as an investigative journalist and a PR consultant, is they were waiting to see what would happen, hoping it would blow over. When it got to the point that people were saying their silence was the problem, they acted to protect their own reputations. They had no real choice.

So, after three days of waiting, all we have from them is that they were wrong not fully identify the bloggers? That took most people a few minutes to figure out when the story first broke. They provided no details about what went wrong or what they’re doing to fix the problem etc.

Finally, how can it be jumping to negative conclusions when a PR firm fakes blogs, then stalls in admitting as much. Do people who care about doing the right thing behave that way?

It’s just a bit of lateral thinking. Connect the dots. I don’t need a press release to tell me what is in plain sight. Frankly, Mathew, that’s what you should have done.

Dominc,

With all due respect, that’s just nonsense. You’re happy to jump to such critical conclusions, but for no reason you can state? “A whole host of other things, ranging from nepotism to downright dishonesty”? It strikes me as quite dishonest of you to allege those motives without backing them up, and then to hide your accusations behind a smokescreen that people who disagree with you are being naive. Shame on you.

I know people in the company and I know their sincerity. So does Mathew. This is not “naivete”. It’s personal experience with how senior people, including Richard, deal with adversity and challenge.

Shame on you.

Dominic:

I may not have insight into the internal workings at Edelman, but I know the people I have dealt with there, and have had some interaction with both Steve Rubel and Richard Edelman, and they have all struck me as honest people with good intentions — therefore I choose to think that they were honestly trying to deal with the situation, not hoping it would blow over.

As for why they waited, it’s true that you and I and plenty of others didn’t need to spend days wondering what to do, but the reality is that we don’t run a company of 2.500 people and we don’t have to worry about keeping Wal-Mart as a client. Behaving in the right way sounds great, but I’ve been around long enough to know that there are financial realities to consider as well. Who’s being naieve now?

Sorry for hogging your comments, but perhaps most curious of all is the lack of discussion of the ethics of the two “bloggers.”

One is a freelance writer and the other a photographer for the Washington Post. Would you employ the freelance writer or the photographer at the Globe if you were in a position to do so?

That’s another story, I know, but it’s all related. The blurring between journalism, pr, blogging and advertising. Maybe I’m just old school, but I like my journalism plain, just like my morning toast.

Rob,

Read the stories before you call what I say nonsense. It’s all there. The freelance writer’s brother works for Edelman. He got her the jaunt and it was paid for by Edelman, using Wal-Mart money in part. That’s nepotism. I’d love to back this up by linking to the post on the flog, but it has been removed by Edelman. I wonder why?

Sorry to fault your friends, but a little independent thinking is sorely needed.

The fact that they screwed up isn’t the issue, Dominic — I was one of the first ones to call them on it. I’m just not as eager as you seem to be to assign impure motives to their every action since then.

[...] Categories: walmart Reader Comments RSSRmail Mon, 16 Oct 2006 23:22:55 GMT User comment good point Randy !! Google Trends does even have stats for this site or term !1 /pd Mon, 162006 23:38:01 GMT User comment http://peterdawson.typepad.com/blog/2006/10/bloggers_are_su.html Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:46:11 User comment Let me point out that it was BusinessWeek, not a blogger, which brought up the issue, andpotential redefinition of the term “Wal-Marting”. Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:47:04 GMT User comment [Oops, forget to sign that -  <a href="http://sethf.com/">Seth Finkelstein</a>] Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:48:22 GMT User comment Are you blaming the mainstream media? Sounds likecop-out.Randy [...]

[...] Ingram on Edelman on Wal-Mart blogger brouhaha. [...]

consequences for violating it, and having a sufficiently transparent internal management structure that lets experts like Steve Rubel at least know about all the blogging initiatives happening at the firm Others agree. Check out the comments on Matthew Ingram’s Edelmam/Wal-Mart post. One poster in particular, Dominic Jones, feels that the apology is at best tainted, and certainly not adequate. (Dominic has blogged about transparency and PR.) As he says on Matthew Ingram’s blog:

[...] Edelman takes ownership of Wal-Mart blunder [...]

[...] Meanwhile, the audience starts to disperse. Suddenly, the cell phone of one of them, a guy called Scoble, goes off. It’s Richard, who once again explains the dilemna to Scoble. “Good enough for me”. Scoble is satisfied. Another attendee, Shel, says, “Props to Richard”. He thinks again and feels that others should now back off. Matthew says “very classy“. [...]