In an interview published yesterday through ITWorld, which publishes an interview done by IDG news service, Richard Edelman, reveals that it wasn’t a case of corporate arrogance, or willful contempt that led to the Wal-Mart flogging escapade. But rather, in what sounds like a stunning strategic blunder, he discusses exactly how his own firm failed the basic tenets of public relations.

… it [the lack of disclosure] was a failure in all media. Which is to say, if they were talking to you in your IDG mainstream media hat, you would want to know the name of the spokesperson and what his background was and what his credentials were and we failed that basic test. We did it because we have people who are insufficiently experienced in this. And [here's] my job. I have to make sure people have the training in basics of PR and also in the morals of new media and that’s what I’m totally focused on.

Furthermore, when questioned about what he learned about the situation, Mr. Edelman continues:

What I learned is that we’ve got to let the people who are quite expert in this area, the guys who run me2revolution (an Edelman subsidiary), be our counsel but also be in control in a certain way as to what is and what is not acceptable.

So, in summary, it sounds like Mr. Edelman, one of the foremost leaders in evangelizing the use of blogging as a public relations tool handed off a premium super A+ client like Wal-mart to an inexperienced bunch of junior executives (well, one can’t imagine inexperienced senior execs, can they?) – who weren’t even part of the arm of Edelman that is supposed to have an expertise in blogging.

WHAT?!

Ok — the benefit of hindsight is that it is, of course, 20/20, but really? Come on, man!

What were you thinking! The jaded amongst us (and those with experience in PR, unlike yours truly) might say that it is IMPOSSIBLE that the Boss wouldn’t have knowledge of the goings on with such a client.

Somone’s got to be signing off on these things — and that someone either is, or probably directly reports to, or is at the very least, has a very short line to Mr. Edelman himself.

It just boggles the mind that if Mr. Edelman is to be believed, then either such a chain of command doesn’t exist – which is an unbelievably powerful oversight, or perhaps Mr. Edelman has an unbelievable amount of faith in those junior executives.

Or, of course, that Richard Edelman knew exactly what was going along and is making these poor shlups the fall guys.

[After all, where are Mr. Edelman's own thoughts on this particular issue? No where on his own blog]

Well, you’ve got to take what he’s saying at face value for the moment.

And, sadly, if you do — it makes Richard Edelman kind of sound like a dupe — not really knowing, or aware of, or understanding, how a client like Wal-Mart was really being handled.

Another side of the coin: What I’d love to hear (and perhaps a blog?) is the real opinion of the executives involved. What direction were they given? Who did they report to? Were they the ones that were perhaps the arrogant ones – fooling the higher ups that something like this could be done easily, cheaply, and with no one the wiser?

Could it be that a new generation of PR execs, weaned at the teat of MySpace, Facebook and Friendster, and living in an era where instant messaging reigns over email, which may be the real culprits in this sorry saga?