Apparently tomorrow there is going to be a New York Times piece about Wal-Mart PR people contacting bloggers with tips on stories about Wal-Mart. Nobody is sure what the story will say yet, but since this is the Times doing a story about Wal-Mart I suspect it will be negative.

I really don't see what the big deal is. The idea that public relations people would contact bloggers who spend a lot of time commenting on the news with what is, essentially, a press release really isn't all that surprising. I received these emails from Wal-Mart's PR people. The guy I worked with is named Marshall Manson. One day he sent me an email saying that he'd seen some of my posts about Wal-Mart, that he worked in public relations for the company and that he'd like to send me some links and commentary about Wal-Mart related stories.

I agreed.

Why not? Wal-Mart is a topic I've written about since I started this blog and I didn't see the harm in allowing them to send me information. Honestly, I get emails like this from all over the place. Some solicited (in that I signed up for their email list) some not. I get them from groups concerned about immigration, tax policy and national security issues (among other things). I also get them from other bloggers hoping I'll link to their posts, and recently I've even started getting emails from the ACLU, which I assure you were not solicited.

Sometimes I post on this stuff that is sent to me and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wrings negative things about what is sent to me and sometimes I write positive things. Never once has anyone, including the PR people from Wal-Mart, offered to pay me or otherwise compensate me in any way for writing favorably about their interests/group/company. They all try to convince me to write favorably about that stuff, of course, but that's how this stuff works.

The bottom line is this: I'm not going to stop accepting emails from people who think they have interesting stuff I'd like to post on. I will not ever accept money or gifts from somebody in exchange for writing what they want me to write. If people want to provide me with information, however, I'm all for it. I'll post it if I find it interesting or let it go if I don't.

I still have every email sent to me by Mr. Manson and, if need be, I'd be more than willing to post them all in order to prove that this was nothing but an exchange of information.

Update:

The Times story can be read here.

Seems a bit sensational to me. I can't speak for other bloggers, but as I indicated above I routinely get swamped with emails from all sorts of interests hoping I'll post on the information they provide me. I have never, unlike some of the other bloggers, copy and pasted information directly from what Wal-Mart sent me.

I wrote posts containing my own thoughts and ideas about some of the links they sent me, and that's it.

I don't see this as being an issue at all. I look forward to any other information Mr. Manson might choose to provide me with.

On a related note, I have been invited to the trip to Wal-Mart headquarters mentioned at the end of the article. I plan on going in April and, as the article points out, I will be paying my own way down. Honestly it sounds like a fun trip to me. The Wal-Mart distribution center has been described to me as a fairly marvelous bit of modern technology. I think that alone will be worth the trip (in addition to me getting to visit some friends in the area).

Update:

In the interest of full-disclosure and 100% transparency here is a PDF with every email between myself and Mr. Manson included.

As you can see, Manson contacted me about one of my posts and asked if he could send me information. I agreed, and he did. Most of his emails were either a run-down of links and excerpts from articles having tod o about the company as well as some information for the upcoming trip in April.

In one instance Marshall sent me a link to an article I'd already posted about months before he even contacted me for the first time and in another email you can see where I actually initiated contact and sent him a link to one of my posts.

Several times I indicated to Mr. Manson that I would gladly accept anything he cared to send but that I wouldn't gaurantee to write about anything.

As you can see, there is nothing shady going on here. My support for Wal-Mart pre-dated the contact from Mr. Manson and that I posted on some of the links he sent me is hardly a crime.