Media's Iron(ic) Feet

There's "whoopee-not-to do" over one of Edwards' volunteers staff calling Wal-Mart to get a Sony PS 3.

My favorite inaccurate reporting of this flap, in which a correct link to the article where it based its post is by Tom Bevan, who has a blog called "Real Clear Politics" at Time. Of course, it's supposed to be about ironies in the news, but the blogger put a nice ironic foot in his mouth by posting this:

Running To, From Wal-Mart
Posted by TOM BEVAN | E-Mail This | Permalink | Email Author

Here's an interesting contrast of two potential 2008 presidential candidates. On one hand you have Wal-Mart uber critic John Edwards apologizing for one of his staffers setting foot in the big-box retailer seeking an elusive PlayStation 3 for the Edwards kids.

Here's what I responded by e-mail yesterday (and I have provided BW readers to an e-mail as well):

Dear Mr. Bevan,

This is what you wrote on your blog today:

"Here's an interesting contrast of two potential 2008 presidential candidates. On one hand you have Wal-Mart uber critic John Edwards apologizing for one of his staffers setting foot in the big-box retailer seeking an elusive PlayStation 3 for the Edwards kids. "

Let's get the facts straight, based on your link to the story.

1) No staffer set foot in Wal-Mart; it was a phone inquiry
2) It was not even a staffer that made the phone inquiry, it was a volunteer, who was a teenager (young kid is Edwards' words) and he should not have used Edwards name.

Now that the facts are straight, let's look at the problems with this story in general.

1) Wal-Mart releases a name of a customer who makes an inquiry about a product? Does any customer have a right to privacy in that regard? Do you want Wal-Mart to tell the press if you as a consumer bought a certain product?

2) Wal-Mart released this information the same day Edwards was on a teleconference call with Wakeup Wal-Mart, an organization that is trying to bring attention to human resources issues such as wages, hours, the right to unionize, etc.

Update: Wading Through the Wire blog reports that Edwards made a volunteer stand in line at Wal-mart. I wonder if they are listeners of Rush and Coulter to write such farce.


Media Matters also noticed the AP published the side of Wal-Mart, despite getting information from Senator Edwards' office. Normally if the story can be easily refuted, such a story never gets any space anywhere. Interesting.


Tags: John Edwards, media bias, Wal-Mart, media matters, benny's world