Wal-Mart Drops PR Firm Whose Flack Posed as Reporter
Hamilton Nolan · 06/25/12 01:21PMEarlier this month, a flack named Stephanie Harnett—who worked for Mercury Public Affairs, and whose client was Wal-Mart—was caught posing as a reporter to sneak into an anti-Wal-Mart event in Los Angeles. She was fired soon after we published the story, and both Wal-Mart and Mercury decried her actions. The firm said that Harnett was not acting on their orders. (Later, a different former PR person who worked on Wal-Mart's behalf told us that she had been instructed to use similar tactics by her own firm.)