Enter the no-spin zone of the deep: the BP live feedThe last thing BP wanted was images of the undersea oil plume in the Gulf shown to the world. Yet the live ‘spillcam’ of the Deepwater Horizon geyser may have tempered ill-will against BP.
Atlanta
It was the last thing BP wanted: An open, high-definition live
video feed – a "spillcam," if you will – showing in excruciating
detail the massive oil geyser fouling the Gulf of Mexico, a
situation admittedly caused by the giant extractive firm. IN PICTURES: Louisiana oil spill The fact is, since the spillcam came online, public approval of BP's
work has stopped its freefall, and even inched up a smidgen, according
to a new
CBS News poll. Extractive companies like BP, which often operate in conflict zones,
are used to things going wrong and working to ameliorate damage at the
corporate level, often by trying to control the message. But it quickly became apparent that standard operating procedure does not apply to the runaway Macondo well. In frustration and even anger, the government last week distanced itself from BP at its press conferences, even while working shoulder-to-shoulder in the capping effort. BP's chief, Tony Hayward, has also stumbled, having to apologize to the 11 families of the killed for saying, "I want my life back," for having to deal with the consequences of the spill. "Instead of reassuring the public, critics say, Mr. Hayward has turned into a day-after-day reminder of BP’s public relations missteps in responding to the crisis," write Jad Mouawad and Clifford Krauss in the New York Times. On Friday, BP replaced Hayward as the company's front man on the spill with company troubleshooter Robert Dudley, whose ultimate task will be to clean up BP's tarnished image. BP's public reaction to the spill so far, says crisis management consultant Larry Smith in Louisville, Ky., offers a telling glimpse into the pitfalls of modern media-spin work. "The question is, why does it take so long for intelligent people,
well-educated and very bright, and not always greedy, to … use common
sense," says Mr. Smith. Aside from the live feed serving as a symbol of a "bleeding America," as Syracuse University pop culture expert Robert Thompson puts it, the BP live feed of the plume also shows BP's remotely-operated submarines working, not talking, offering perhaps the boldest example yet of corporate transparency in the midst of a world-shaking industrial accident. © The Christian Science Monitor. All Rights Reserved. To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.csmonitor.com |