It's no secret that I think that Consumerist does a huge favor to the general public in pointing out what's fishy about the latest bridge on the market. Editor Ben Popken has now taken Consumerist readers into a conversation Edelman PR's Wal-Mart advocate Mike Krempasky attempted to have with Ben.  

If Ben is being entirely truthful and transparent, then the question that was posed to Editor Ben by Krempasky will make your stomach sink. According to Consumerist, Krempasky, representing both Edelman and Wal-Mart, asked, "What can we do to get you to stop writing about our companies?"

Sort of Godfather, no?

"Our companies" refers to Edelman and Wal-Mart. Consumerist isn't a big fan of Edelman and Edelman has actively tried to woo Consumerist (see the nice comments Mike leaves for Ben sometimes) and Ben Popken into allowing them to get into their good graces.

"What can we do to get you to stop writing about our companies?" I'd be interested in knowing what Edelman thought that they could do for Consumerist. The immediate thought is, as one commenter mentioned, a briefcase full of cash. But maybe Krempansksy meant to ask them for consulting advice. Maybe what Krempansky really meant was, "How can we be a better Wal-Mart for consumers and its employees?" or maybe he wanted Ben to be his Jerry Maguire ("Help me help you") and it just came out wrong.

I'm interested in what all the PR bloggers are going to say about this. We know through the Denton media channels that this episode is on Gawker this morning (how I got to it) and Lifehacker's Gina Trapani's commented on the post ("Isn't Edelman Steve Rubel's company? Yikes. I would've expected a lot more.") spells out the worst case scenerio for professionals associated with Edelman.