Pro Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches To A Halt

[Scriptor Ignotus]

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=49505&Nid=24192&p=378325

Pro-Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches To A Halt
by Tom Siebert, Thursday, Oct 12, 2006 6:00 AM ET

WHAT DO YOU CALL A phony blog that's actually a front for a huge corporation? A "flog"?

A pro-Wal-Mart blog called "Wal-Marting Across America," ostensibly launched by a pair of average Americans chronicling their cross-country travels in an RV and lodging in Wal-Mart parking lots, has been reduced to a farewell entry. One of its two contributors was revealed to be Jim Thresher, a staff photographer for The Washington Post.

The blog, launched Sept. 27, was profiled in this week's issue of BusinessWeek, which exposed the site as a promotional tactic engineered by Working Families for Wal-Mart (WFWM), an organization launched by Wal-Mart's public relations firm Edelman. WFWM paid for the RV and all travel expenses, rerouted the trip's original plan, and plastered a logo on the RV's side. Although the blog featured a link to WFWM, it did not identify the organization as a paid sponsor.

Thresher contributed both photos and promotional commentary to the site--one entry describes a Wal-Mart employee "going the extra mile." Another plugs the store as "the nation's largest supplier of organic milk ... by shopping at Wal-Mart eat healthy while stretching food dollar (paying $3.48 for a half gallon of organic milk is one way)."

Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor for The Washington Post, says Thresher's activities are a violation of the paper's policy for freelancing for special interests. While Thresher "did have a conversation with an editor , he did not make clear to his supervisor" that he would be working in a promotional capacity.

/snip

[louis-t]

1. Culture of Corruption.

[YOY]

2. Working Families for Wal-Mart???

Where are they working? China? All members of the family no doubt, in 20 hour shifts....

[China_cat]

3. $3.48 for a half gallon of milk of any kind is obscene

Costco has it $3.50/GALLON.

[YOY]

4. They haven't figured out how to get it from China yet

That and it had no leading brands that consumers recognize hands down over the others and therefore their stronghanded tactics in bargaining with suppliers is moot.

[China_cat]

6. That price I quoted was for 'organic' milk

Regular 2% is $2.49/gallon at Costco...over $3/gallon in the grocery stores.

[Akoto]

5. Makes me glad that I'm lactose intolerant. LOL.

:evilgrin:

[Fierce]

7. Oh, that crazy liberal media.

Digging for dirt on Wal-Mart to show how bad it -- heeeeeyyyy, wait a minute!