Prince of Dorkiness Sinks in the Flog Bog

Noise machinist, dogged by flogging, is a no-show.

IPDI/Edelman on Political Blogging and Wal-Mart:

If you don’t follow business or PR blogs, then you may not be aware of the ethical scrape Edelman recently got its blue chip client, Wal-Mart, into. The friction involved revelations that a few presumably grassroots pro-Wal-Mart blogs were in fact astroturf blogs — one might call them “astroblogs,” if the term “flog” wasn’t already gaining popularity.

Actually, I do and I am. In fact, WalMart Watch has launched a viral marketing campaign of its own, sending around a PDF press release with a recap of the case and a handy summary of all the press coverage. I am posting a copy here:

• Wal-Mart Watch: The Flog Controversy

I am always happy when other people collect all the information into a handy package for quick absorption so I don’t have to do it myself. So I kindly the WMW for thinking of me in that light.

And with all due respect to Blog P.I., which gists the gist nicely, “astroblog” is a fine thought, but the word-play in “flog” is precisel, economical and unique.

The first blogging astronaut will no doubt glom on to the term “astroblog” — and astronomers should probably make an effort to lay claim to the term right now — and we would lose the PR-specific association.

To recap, as briefly as possible: In early October, BusinessWeek revealed that a blog called Wal-Marting Across America — featuring a couple driving their RV cross-country, using Wal-Mart parking lots as rest stops — was conceived and launched by Edelman on behalf of Working Families for Wal-Mart. The problem is, none of the parties involved disclosed the arrangement. Once outed, the blog was quickly shuttered.

BPI’s post recounts showing up for a panel discussion at which Richard Edelman was scheduled to appear, eager for a chance to pepper PR’s prince of dorkiness with pointed questions. The plot so far:

In short order, B.L. Ochman called on WOMMA to throw Edelman out for having violated a code of ethics Edelman had helped develop, Richard Edelman started doing damage control on the company’s own website, his firm fessed up to two more flogs, and Edelman-employed blogger Steve Rubel drew flak for saying as little as possible about the incident (though he did not work on these Wal-Mart projects). It was quite the swarm.

I continue to wonder whether or not Edelman, which represents a lot of foreign governments, has not had quite a bit to do with the blogging craze at the State Dept., which sees the Army of Davids as a promising platform for “public diplomacy” …

In the end, WOMMA put Edelman on probation and the company started posting disclosures to their still-extant Wal-Mart blogs. So naturally, if Richard Edelman was going to be taking questions from the audience at a blogger conference, I would have to be there.

However — guess who didn’t show? Richard Edelman. And guess who did show? Activists from Wal-Mart Watch. They stood outside the lobby of the conference room at George Washington University handing out flyers titled “THE WAL-MART BFLOG.”

I continue to wonder whether Edelman, which represents a lot of foreign clients, is not behind the push for blogging at the State Dept., where the Karen Hughes “confederacy of flackery” has clearly recognized the value of the mythical Army of Davids — you know, QuaNGOs funded by networks of government agencies and the lobbies that lobby them, posing as “independent citizen journalists” — as a platform for astroturf “public diplomacy” — i.e., information warfare.