Today Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel posted (finally!) about the Wal-Mart flog.

Richard said: "I want to acknowledge our error in failing to be transparent…This is 100% our responsibility and our error; not the client’s…Let me reiterate our support for the WOMMA guidelines on transparency, which we helped to write. Our commitment is to openness and engagement because trust is not negotiable…"

Steve said: "[O]ur firm failed to be completely transparent. I am sorry I could not speak about this sooner. I had no personal role in this project. There is a process in place that I had to let proceed through its course. This is why it took some time."

Reaction to these terse, matter-of-fact, apologies-without-explanation has been mixed. My own reaction is mixed.

On the PLUS side: I am glad that they finally said something. As noted earlier, their silence became more acidic than the original faux-pas. They probably should have said something sooner — even a place-holder post ("watch this space") would have staved off some of the negativity — but, honestly, it’s only been a couple of business days, and, Edelman and Wal-Mart are large, bureaucratic organizations. I am also heartened that Edelman simply apologized. The brevity of the posts is a li’l troubling (they were "gathering facts" but shared none!), but, this is the counsel I’d have given Edelman if they were my own client. "Keep it simple — embrace the error, make it quick, move on."

BUT: Should we "accept the apology"? A lot of PR bloggers did; they are willing to wave buh-bye to the meme. It’s easy to sympathize, too: Social Media is new; we’re all likely to screw up a some point and when that happens we’ll fervently hope to escape this kind of harsh scrutiny.

But there’s no getting around it. The original flog flouted all the rules of Social Media. Edelman has held itself to a higher standard; positioned itself as a leader; made enormous investments in this realm … and yet the Agency has irresponsibly bungled its leadership role, repeatedly. The flog and ensuing silence are just the most recent examples. There are great bloggers on staff — but in less than 12 months Edelman itself has been knocked for just-plain-lame examples of blogger relations, flogs, etc.

With great power comes great responsibility. When Edelman squanders its credentials with lame-brained strategies, the entire PR industry loses the esteem it was so carefully crafting in this New World Order.

I acknowledge the apology and am glad for it. I hope we all learn from this debacle. But what are the repercussions? The pattern of behavior is still unacceptable. Despite my respect for Edelman’s many individual stars, and for Richard Edelman himself, I find that I cannot accept the Agency’s simplistic apology.

Tags: edelman, wal-mart, micropersuasion, richard+edelman, flog, public+relations, wal-mart, wal-marting+across+america

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