Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign

Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign.

The Times today runs a piece on how Wal-Mart over the last few months has become pro-active in seeking out friendly bloggers through whom they hope they can disseminate the company's good news about itself. The Times's big revelation is that some bloggers take the tips they get from a Wal-Mart PR account executive and run them nearly verbatim without disclosing where they're from. Thus, they turn themselves into unpaid corporate shills for the company.

Yeah, it's an issue. Everybody wants authoritative information. Objectivity is less important than knowing a story's provenance and being aware of a source's spin proclivities. But it's a little ironic that the Times is going out of its way to wring its hands over Wal-Mart's blogger campaign and the bloggers who swallow it without recognizing that all the same issues, which might together be grouped under the rubric of trust, are immediate and relevant for the traditional media, too. In fact, moreso: To the extent organizations like the Times hold themselves up as the standard bearers of journalistic correctness, they need to hold themselves to a higher standard.

Comments

[eric shackle]

Hi. Greetings from Australia.
I'm writing a story about Personal Bee and other bees, and wouod like to check it with you. Please let me know your email address.

Cheers, Eric.

[ZyprexaBG]

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