Wal-Mart announced plans to award $500,000 in scholarships to minority students at journalism programs around the country, including Howard University, University of Southern California and Columbia University.

Wal-Mart has not supported any of those organizations in the past. But as the company outgrows its rural roots and moves into suburbs and cities, it is encountering more resistance from people whose traditions and values may be different from those of Wal-Mart's historic customers.

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Mona Williams, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the journalism scholarships were "a first of their kind" for the retailer, and came about because of the recent publicity around its business practices.

"We've really been in the spotlight and I think that's made us especially sensitive to the need for balanced coverage," Ms. Williams said. "It doesn't matter if the subject is Wal-Mart or something else. You just aren't going to have that unless different perspectives are represented." Without diversity, she added, "the result can be narrower thinking as news events are presented to the public."

Influencing that presentation may be at the heart of the effort, although Ms. Williams said there was "no hidden agenda here" and added that it probably would have been done even if Wal-Mart had not come under scrutiny.

John Siegenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, said, "Wal-Mart is doing what most corporations do: when they feel pain, they try to salve the wound." He predicted that "they may get less out of it than they expect to," but he added that "if it helps minority journalism, I hope they salve it with more than half a million dollars."

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Tom Bowers, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said the move was "saying to the public, look at the good thing we're doing." North Carolina was not one of the journalism schools designated by Wal-Mart for scholarships, but the university awards about $100,000, some from media companies, to students every year, Mr. Bowers said.

"The people who win our scholarships typically don't go to any national meetings and aren't put on display by these corporate donors," he said. "We certainly make sure there is no quid pro quo on these. The only obligation is to write them a letter and thank them for the scholarship. The student isn't expected to do anything for the company."

Of the programs chosen, only the University of Southern California's Annenberg School has received corporate funding from nonmedia companies in the past. A spokesman, Geoffrey Baum, said the school had gotten money from Nissan and General Motors, as well as from Raytheon and Home Depot for public-relations programs. Some journalism programs are in states where Wal-Mart has opened a large number of stores. The University of Florida and the University of Texas made the list; those states have nearly 600 of Wal-Mart's 3,596 stores, according to Wal-Mart.