Today the New York Times ran an article concerning how Wal-Mart uses right wing blogs to improve it's corporate image. Gee, are right wing blogs just shills for Corporate America? Is Bush incompetent? It seems that some right wing blogs, lacking talent imagination and writing skills, post the emails stories sent to them by WalMart verbatim. One might view this story as an attack on the blogs by the Corporate Media, who are losing more readers to the blogs (and thus advertising revenue), but I see this as just another reason to boycott WalMart (as well as right wing blogs) Why?
Not only does WalMart use the blogs to rshape it's image, it also uses them to smear the competition. One story passed along was about how WalMart stores raised more money for the Salvation Army than Target, which banned red kettle collectors from the front of their stores. Anothe rstory dealt with 25,000 people turning up to apply for jobs at a new Wal-Mart in Illinois, which is more a statement about the lack of good jobs in this country than it it about people willing to work at WalMart.WalMart does not compensate the bloggers, however, they have invited the bloggers, at their own expense, to a media conference at corporate headquarters in Bentonville AK. Yeah, like a bunch of right wingers are going to want to go to the land of Bill Clinton.
So rather than improve conditions and benefits for it's workers, which is the main goal of WalMart Watch, they'd rather spend the money to hire a consultant to spread propaganda about how wonderful a place WalMart is, something that would be obvious if it really were.
No,Rex Kramer was not named as one of the bloggers receiving emails from WalMart.
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7 comments:
Hi Lew
I don't know if you've visited isamericaburning since this morning but I posted an article on Wal-mart from a local point of view.
Not plugging the blog (lol) just though you might find the post interesting and a little different.
Ann aka granny
Damn I love the idea of Blog Payola. Where can I get me some of that fat cash?
I immediately thought of Rex as well. If anyone was gonna blog for Walmart for free it would be Rex. Maybe he could get one of those 'greeters' jobs there for all his hard work.
"Yeah, like a bunch of right wingers are going to want to go to the land of Bill Clinton."
Actually, Bentonville is pretty right wing, Arkansas is not accurately characterized by Bill Clinton. I saw this at Earl Bockenfeld's, which I read every day. Sadly though Lew the practice of doling out blog posts and even commetn rebuttals is not a new practice and it happens on the left as well. It would shock you to know how many bloggers do not actually write their own posts, and it would also shock you to know how many times a day I come across plagiarized content from other sources. Without attribution. In some ways, blogging is like a cut and paste game of telephone.
Hold the biggest damn gun there is to my head and I still will not set foot in a Wal-mart. You may want to hang on to that big gun and use it on me if I get started on all the things I detest about that company.
I'll bash them for free, if there's a market out there for that!
(my verification word is "duwut" It's hard not to place a question mark after it) LOL
Wal-Mart uses right wing blogs to improve it's corporate image.
Umm, Wal-Mart depends on right wing bloggers to improve their image? I hate to point out the obvious to them, but righties are not held in very high esteem right now. They'd be better off divorcing themselves from the right.
why the hell doesnt Walmart buy the port contract? They have money, they're effcient, and they have a stake in imports. I hear Bong Emporium is giving free glass pipes to lefty bloggers that publish positive stories about them.
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