Blog Wars: Gawker vs. Edelman

Blog Suggests PR People Lie; PR Chief Takes Umbrage

Posted by Michael Bush on 02.15.08 @ 11:08 AM

Sometimes it just all comes together.

Yesterday on Gawker.com Hamilton Nolan, a former colleague of mine at PRWeek, was no doubt as happy as could be while partaking in a couple of his favorite hobbies -- dressing down the PR industry and ripping Wal-Mart a new one. And the fact that he got to poke and prod Richard Edelman, the industry's highest profile executive, about his agency's work for the retailer while doing it, no doubt made it all the more enjoyable.

It all started after Mr. Edelman personally responded to a post Mr. Nolan wrote that featured a marketing executive's detailed account about a media training session he or she had with an Edelman employee wherein the Edelman employee flat out told the exec that: "Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie."

Mr. Edelman demanded that the post be taken down immediately. Ummm ... fat chance of that happening.

The only thing that could have probably made Mr. Nolan's day even better was if somehow there would have been a way for him to work a Ronn [sic] Torossian joke in there somewhere.

Ad Age recently named Mr. Edelman its 2007 Agency Executive of the Year and his agency PR Agency of the year.