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BP Pushes the meme “The Gulf Coast is Perfectly Fine” on BCS Night
The PR blitz orchestrated by BP is running wide open full-tilt boogie today,
slathered onto the BCS broadcast from New Orleans, starring the LSU Tigers
and the Alabama Crimson Tide... both states that have borne the brunt of the
aftereffects of the Macondo gusher.
Commercials touting the “fact” that the Gulf Coast is “back and better than ever”
ran all through the holiday season bowl games, but will reach saturation levels
before tonight’s game ends.
BP representative Iris Cross chirps delightedly in the ads, saying that she is “glad
to report that all beaches and waters are open for everyone to enjoy!” and that
“the economy is showing progress, with many areas on the Gulf Coast having
their best tourism season in years.”
BP has hired top New Orleans chefs Emeril Lagasse and John Besh to promote
Gulf seafood. Huge trucks hand out fish tacos and shrimp jambalaya to game
goers and tourists, and galas, pre-game parties and vacation giveaways have
had BP sponsorship.
Okay. Right. Sure, everything is just hunky-dory here on the sunny Gulf Coast...
Other folks might have a slightly different take on all the sweetness and light
from our oily British buddies...
Some Louisiana shrimp fishermen, who have just suffered through the worst
shrimping season in decades, say it’s just propaganda...
“They talk about areas being all open. There are areas that are still
closed,” said A.C. Cooper, a shrimp fisherman in Plaquemines Parish in
Louisiana. He listed some bays and fishing spots that he says the state still has
closed due to oil contamination. “It’s bogus, it’s not the truth.”
He added that last fall’s shrimp harvest was dismal. “The numbers on our shrimp
are way down,” he said. “They (BP) make it sound like they’re doing a lot, but
they’re not doing much to help the fishermen out … I got good fishermen
struggling to pay their bills right now.”
The head of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, a commercial shrimpers group,
called it “BP propaganda.”
“When you have a lot of money, you can pretty much get any point across,” Clint
Guidry complained. “It’s kind of like indoctrination.”
And on the Mississippi coast, the vaunted “rebirth of tourism” is also a bit more
lackluster than advertised.
Bridgette Varone, head of the Gulf Coast chapter of the Mississippi Hospitality &
Restaurant Association, said restaurants reported similar revenues in both 2010
and 2011 for the month of June, indicating that the summer after the spill was
not much better that the summer of the spill.
“I wish we had better news to report,” Varone said. “We didn’t blow
any socks off.”
“They might not blatantly lie in the ad, but the true story is far less shiny, and far
more troubling,” said Aaron Viles of the Gulf Restoration Network, a New
Orleans-based environmental group.
He said the spill may have caused a decrease in shrimp harvests and
abnormalities in killifish, a minnow. He noted that oil was still marring some
marshes and was buried under some beaches. He also said Congress had not
done enough to regulate offshore drilling and assure the long-term recovery of
the Gulf.
“BP needs to put these facts in their ads,” Viles said.
But George Crozier, former director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama,
agrees that BP needs to be “a little more apologetic and less triumphant” in their
ads. But then...he says that others - including ocean scientists and
environmentalists - have also been guilty of a certain amount of spin.
...Crozier said many others were guilty of “spin” just like BP,
including scientists and environmentalists who tried, for their own reasons, to
push the notion that the oil spill had devastated the Gulf. Crozier said the spill’s
effects have not been as devastating as many argued they would be.
“The beaches are people-safe, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “I thought
there was a hysterical reaction to tar balls — unless we started eating
them.”
Bite me, Dr. Crozier...
The Dauphin Island Sea Lab and other entities were recipients of financial funding totaling $500 million from BP for “independent” scientific research after the spill. Interpret the position on “spin” as you will.
Tom Mueller, a BP spokesman, said that the BP ad campaign has always
concentrated on facts, and not “anecdotes”, and that BP’s commitment to the
Gulf is sincere...
“When you look at the tourism numbers, heads in beds, revenues,
are generally up,” he said. “There are some exceptions, but when you step back
and look at the coast as a whole, the tourism industry is recovering.”
“We’re honoring our commitment here in helping promote the Gulf Coast and
Gulf seafood and doing our best to help the region recover,” he said. “As Iris
says in the ads, we have more work to do, and BP as a company fully recognizes
that there is more work to be done.”
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