What do you do if you are one of the most reviled company in the blogosphere? If you're Wal-Mart, you team up with bloggers to recast your image in this influential court of public opinion. According to the NY Times, Wal-Mart first turned to bloggers at the end of 2005 "as part of our overall effort to tell our story," said Mona Williams, a company spokeswoman.

She continues: "As more and more Americans go to the Internet to get information from varied, credible, trusted sources, Wal-Mart is committed to participating in that online conversation."

But of course the strategy, masterminded by Wal-Mart's US PR team Edelman, is causing a stir of controversy. For starters, the man Edelman hired to turn around Wal-mart's flagging public opinion is a contoversial figure in his own right. He is Marshall Manson, a blogger who writes for, according to the Times, conservative Web sites like Human Events Online, which advocates limited government, and Confirm Them, which has pushed for the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees. Manson's partner at Edelman on the Wal-Mart account is Mike Krempasky, co-founder of the conservative blog RedState.org. [A previous posting to this blog said Manson co-founded RedState.org. He did not.]

All politics aside, this strategy will be closely watched by media observers and PR practioners. Some questions are already surfacing.

For example, in canvassing for sympathetic bloggers, questions are arising about - gasp - credibility and yes, the gullibility of deskchair observers who are only too willing to publish unquestionably favorable reports about the retailer simply because they are company-fed "exclusives." In some cases, the coverage is word-for-word, cut-and-paste jobs. Lazy bloggers.

It was only a matter of time before Wal-Mart tried to establish a foothold in the same forum that attacks it daily and has sprung to life such public advocacy groups as WalmartWatch.com and WakeupWalMart. And for this they should be congratulated. But I cannot help but think that much of Wal-Mart's problems stem from its decades-long policy of closed-door PR, effectively creating a seal-tight vacuum of information around the company. I have been hung up on more times by a Wal-Mart PR in my journalism career than by any other company, bar none. Even with this trusty blog, I would doubt their policy towards me would change.

In any case, some healthy debate about blog attribution is already emerging on this story. For this, I am relieved. Read the bloggers' perspective here, here.

- Bernhard