Just last week, big-box retail giant Walmart went to war with online news outlet, The Huffington Post. The retailer’s VP of Communications, David Tovar informed the Huff Post via email that the store has “made a business decision not to participate in Huffington Post articles going forward due to the one-sided reporting and unfair and unbalanced editorial decisions made by Huffington Post reporters and editors.”

This decision only stands to drive Walmart further into the recent public relations pitfall that the company’s executives have found themselves in due to negative press coverage and protests surrounding their employees’ pay, health coverage, benefits and even gender discrimination. The Huff Post has covered many stories over the last few months about Walmart’s missteps and issues related to HR and still isn’t denying that it is “out to get” the nation’s single largest private employer, Walmart, via their editorial coverage.

The news site has actually gone so far as to launch a completely unique landing page,    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/walmart/, which features mostly unfavorable stories, videos, and photos about Walmart.

My question is: who was asleep at the wheel within the Walmart Communications Department to let these stories pile up and get this bad? There seems to be a certain degree of the big-box retailer just “not caring” what their public perception is and what negative press they’re receiving. People will still shop at their stores — whether that’s out of necessity or out of choice, it could matter less to Walmart.

PR holes like the one Walmart is in right now are a lot easier to get into than they are to get out of. And arrogant Communications Executives issuing statements that they do not want to be included in any further stories published by a specific news outlet is not exactly the best approach to “media relations.” This will take the retailer a lot of time and negotiating power to earn back their trust. That is, if they care to in the first place.

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