Earlier this summer, we did an interview with the No Respect! podcast. They asked us about The Consumerist in general and Walmart in particular. Especially of interest was our meeting with Mike Krempasksy (above, center, tie), who runs the Walmart blog war team at Edelman PR. After a series of disapariging posts, Mike wanted to meet up with us for drinks. He opened the meeting with, “This is all off the record.” The next thing out of his mouth was, “What can we do to get you to stop writing about our companies?” You can hear more about it in this episode of the No Respect! podcast.

We didn’t tell you about this fateful meeting until now because one, we had agreed not to, but more importantly, we wanted to play it out and see what happened with Edelman. Not much did, we never did get that exclusive behind the scenes factory tour to see where they convert undocumented immigrant workers into budget home furnishings. We did, however, exchange a series of bitchy emails with Mike Krempasky. For instance, after the jump, what he said today after he saw this podcast go up…

UPDATE: Mike rebutts and we retort.

Subject: Ben, a quick follow up
From: “Krempasky, Michael”
Date: 12:31 PM
To: tips@consumerist.com

I remain impressed with your professionalism, although I now consider myself well educated about your perspective on the notion of an informal and off the record conversation.

Cheers and good luck.

From: Ben Popken [mailto:tips@consumerist.com]
Sent: Wed 9/27/2006 12:36 PM
To: Krempasky, Michael
Subject: Re: Ben, a quick follow up

What development is this in reference to?

Subject: RE: Ben, a quick follow up
From: “Krempasky, Michael”
Date: 12:37 PM
To: tips@consumerist.com

Love the podcast.

From: Ben Popken [mailto:tips@consumerist.com]
Sent: Wed 9/27/2006 12:41 PM
To: Krempasky, Michael
Subject: Re: Ben, a quick follow up

Maybe Edelman can make a podcast on how restricting the free expression of information contributes to a healthy republic.

Subject: RE: Ben, a quick follow up
From: “Krempasky, Michael”
Date: 12:41 PM
To: tips@consumerist.com

Hmm, what a fascinating perspective. Here I thought it was a question of courtesy and professionalism, not to mention committment.

Subject: Re: Ben, a quick follow up
From: Ben Popken
Date: 1:02 PM
To: Krempasky, Michael

Guess I have better things to do.

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Now that we’ve outed this, guess we’re going to have to tell you about Walmart’s trikes for tots program they made based off a comment in one of our posts. A more blatant attempt to be nice, we’ve never seen. And that time we and Mike laughed about the Dead or Alive video. Ah, good times.

UPDATE: Mike rebutts and we retort.

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