There is a story by Michael Barbaro in the NYT today with the headline Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in Its Public Relations Campaign. I clicked over there because my blog buddy Brian of Iowa Voice is heavily quoted in the story. I’ve read the piece — three times — trying to get an idea of where Mr. Barbaro was trying to go with the article. What I took away was probably not the same thing that he was trying to convey.

Let me give you a quick overview, not of the article, but of the larger story as I see it.

Wal-Mart wants people to have a positive image of their company. They sent positive stories about their company to some bloggers. Those bloggers used that information and wrote some blog posts. The bloggers did not always say where the information originated.

I’ve sat for several minutes now looking at the previous paragraph wondering if there is anything else I need to add. No, that’s pretty much it.

I’m hardly surprised by the posts Brian has written painting Wal-Mart in a positive light. They are in line with his beliefs as I read them. One of his co-bloggers, Daniel M. Harrison, put it this way.

OF COURSE right wing blogs have written the odd piece trumpeting Wal Mart – the company stands at the very centre of modern capitalist ideology. You wouldn’t have to pay a Republican to trumpet what Wal Mart stands for: that’s as ludicrous as suggesting left wingers have been paid to write kind pieces about Hilary Clinton.

You can read Brian’s reaction to the article here.

DISCLOSURE: Neither Brian (who can’t afford it) or Wal-Mart (Who surely can) paid me anything to write this post. In fact, if Wal-Mart paid me a hundred dollars per word we still wouldn’t be even.

UPDATE: Looking back at the post I noticed that I totally left off a key point I wanted to make. One of the impressions I took from the NYT article was that Barbaro wasn’t happy that Wal-Mart was using bloggers to get their message out — the job of TOM. I may be wrong, but that’s what I read.

Linked with the daily picnic at basil’s blog.