So, for all of you die hard optimists and those would criticize for my negative take, we've got it covered.
Now. The networks reporting on this incident owe the families of those eleven people who were killed in the Deep Horizon explosion a very sincere apology for turning them into statistics tacked onto the bottom of every article and news story since it happened.
At least BBC put them at the top. August 5th BP to pump cement into...
"Oil leaked into the Gulf from 20 April when the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 workers. The flow was stopped on 15 July."
The CBC network in Canada and CNN posted similar articles as well. CNN even made pretty videos. (That's another point all together. Analyze this.)
Consider too that they all report pretty much the same basic facts. The filler and composition differ, as to be expected between writers. Mostly, it's an optimistic platitude. A glossy picture on a magazine cover, if you will, that only offers highlights of what's really going on inside. (Everything is getting better, remember what happened? Aaannnnd, this is what they did.)
What they don't show you is that the European Space Agency predicted this early on. On May 19th, twenty-nine days after the explosion, the ESA reported that the BP oil spill had slipped into the loop stream current, a major component of the ocean's water flow pattern. Because of this, they cautioned that
"...since the Loop Current is a very intense, deep ocean current, its turbulent waters will accelerate the mixing of the oil and water in the coming days.
"This might remove the oil film on the surface and prevent us from tracking it with satellites, but the pollution is likely to affect the coral reef marine ecosystem," Dr Collard said."
It was also reported on by United Press International.
Which is exactly what happened. We can no longer see the oil on the surface of the water. Pay attention to the next expert call in, or video interview. They strongly advise caution, urging us to allow time to take its course before any damage assessments can be done. Our work is not over. LSU professor Ed Overton was one of them, on CNN's program Anderson Cooper 360.
Kudos to the Obama Administration's crack PR team. With a strong hand of concern and optimism, they managed to put a face of cautious responsibility on a volatile situation, which is hard to do.
I, for one, am tired of getting my news through a thinly veiled lens of sensationalism and marketing 'spin'. Why can't we just get the facts, all of them, upfront?
Is this the whole story? No. There is always more. Dig Deep. Find out.
