Milking bad press

Bad press happens. You deal with it and move on with the job of protecting your institutional reputation.

What you don't want to do is let things devolve to the point where you become a media whipping boy, constantly re-living your mistake.

A Wal-Mart in Lebanon, Ohio is still being trotted out as the "art" for pieces about public breast feeding, eight years after the fact. Ohio's legislature is batting around a bill outlining the rights of lacto-Americans, and the mom who claims she was kicked out of the store eight years ago is the inspiration for this bill. (By the way -- she lost her suit against Wal-Mart.)

Still, Wal-Mart -- the last time I checked -- does business beyond the Lebanon city limits. Savvy PR types would remind the reporters involved of any and every policy improvement since 2000. Anything to get Wal-Mart's name out of this controversy. Anything less makes them look like a bunch of boobs rubes.