Too Much BP Coverage?

Andrew Tyndall bravely treads out on dangerous ground and writes that coverage of the BP disaster has gone too far…

There comes a point where the local effects of the oil disaster become just that, a local news story, no longer of pressing concern to the national nightly newscasts. Why should the unemployment of a Louisiana oysterpacker be any more newsworthy, from a national perspective, than a laid-off California teacher or a long-term unemployed Michigan autoworker? Why should the empty beachfront bars of Pensacola attract more national attention than the casino recession on the Las Vegas Strip?

Granted, the damage to the marine ecosystem is a continuing and serious story of national importance–and sometimes when a New York based anchor travels down to the Gulf Coast an environmental lesson, for example by NBC’s Brian Williams, is what we get. Mostly, latterly, the coverage has been about the human toll of this disaster: NBC’s Williams on a shrimping family, CBS’ Katie Couric on forlorn youth, ABC’s Diane Sawyer on hymnsinging villagers. Frankly, in the national scheme of things, the dislocation in these sparsely populated coastal counties and parishes does not deserve such incessant attention–especially since BP has set aside $20bn to make them whole; especially since the disaster that befell next-door New Orleans was so much more calamitous.

The networks’ assignment desks seemed trapped by their own past enthusiasm. Having committed maximum resources to covering the story when it was at crisis stage, regaining a sense of proportion now might seem like callous indifference. It is as if a fear of seeming fickle has clouded their news judgment. NBC has been the worst offender at overstaying its welcome: in the last three weeks since the crisis broke its fever pitch, NBC has sent almost as much time (101 min v ABC 51, CBS 77) on the oil story as its two rivals put together.

It reminds me of the spring of 2000, when a minor foreign policy story, with an interesting human interest angle, became a cause celebre because the national news media, having committed to its importance, could not let go until they had found resolution. The child custody case of Elian Gonzalez ended up logging an astonishing 503 minutes of coverage, the single biggest non-campaign story of that election year. I suppose we can expect to sit through a similar daily drumbeat of oil leak coverage all through the summer until that hole is finally plugged.

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