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BP Disaster: Analysis of Media Coverage “100 Days of Gushing Oil: Eight Things to Know About How the Media Covered the Gulf Disaster”

August 26, 2010 at 12:16 am Leave a comment

In the wake of one of the worst environmental disaster of our lifetimes, PEJ Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports on the media coverage to date.

100 Days of Gushing Oil: Eight Things to Know About How the Media Covered the Gulf DisasterAugust 25, 2010 —The complexity and duration of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made it a challenging story to cover. The media found themselves trying to report a complicated, technical and long-running disaster saga that did not break down along predictable political and ideological lines. And they were reporting to an American public that displayed a ravenous appetite for the spill story. But a study of media coverage of the oil spill from April 20 to July 28 by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that most news organizations rose to the occasion.

 Indeed, the mainstream press spent considerable time reporting from the Gulf region and humanizing the crisis. They largely avoided the temptation to turn the story into another polarizing and political saga. And some of them used their websites to help consumers understand details of the crisis that would have been harder to convey in more traditional formats. In short, the oil spill disaster was a unique story that tested a news industry battered by staffing cutbacks, decreasing revenues, and shrinking ambition. It was a test that much of the media seemed to pass.

 Following are the eight essential points to know about how the media covered the disaster:

•  Oil spill leads the news agenda. The oil spill was the dominant story in the mainstream news media in the 100-day period after the explosion, accounting for 22% of the newshole—almost double the next biggest story. In the 14 full weeks included in this study, the disaster finished among the top three weekly stories 14 times. And it registered as the No. 1 story in nine of those weeks. 
• Events in the Gulf dominated the coverage. The activities in the Gulf of Mexico—the cleanup and containment efforts as wells as the impact of the disaster—represented the leading oil spill storyline, accounting for 47% of the overall coverage. Next came attention to the role of BP, at 27% of the coverage. The third-biggest storyline was Washington based, with 17% of the coverage focused on the response and actions of the Obama Administration. 
•  The White House fared better than BP. The Obama White House generated decidedly mixed media coverage for its role in the spill saga, but questions about its role diminished over time—in part thanks to a Republican misfire. And the administration fared considerably better than BP and its CEO Tony Hayward, who on balance were portrayed as the villains of the story.
•  Outside of Louisiana, there were no protagonists. Among the top newsmakers in this story, most of them in the federal government or working for BP, no one really emerged as a protagonist or hero in the narrative—with two exceptions. A couple of Louisiana officials were the only major characters to be portrayed in a generally positive light.
•  The Gulf saga was, first and foremost, a television story. The disaster generated the most coverage in the cable news (31% of the airtime studied) and network news (29%) sectors.  There were also significant differences in coverage among the three cable news channels, with CNN (42% of the airtime) devoting considerably more attention than MSNBC and Fox News.
•  The mainstream press seemed more interested than social media. In the social media—on blogs, Twitter and You Tube—the spill story generated considerably less attention than in the mainstream media. Among blogs, for example, it made the roster of top stories only five times in 14 weeks. But one theme that resonated throughout the online conversation was skepticism about almost all the principals in the story.
•  Interactive elements helped tell the story. While some did better than others, many traditional media outlets made effective use of interactive features on their websites to track key aspects of the disaster. The PBS NewsHour’s Oil Leak Widget, for example, monitored the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf. The New York Times site offered a video animation that helped explain how a last ditch effort to prevent the spill failed.
•  The spill got the public’s attention. Public interest in the Gulf saga may have even exceeded the level of mainstream media coverage. According to surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, often between 50% and 60% of Americans said they were following the story “very closely” each week during these 100 days. That surpassed the level of public interest during the most critical moments of the health care reform debate.

 These are some of the findings of a study that examined approximately 2,900 stories about the oil spill produced from April 20 to July 28—from the day that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded to the day after BP CEO Tony Hayward’s departure. 

 This study was designed and produced by The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The Pew Research Centeris a nonpartisan and nonpolitical fact tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Read the full report and Take the PEJ Quiz to find out how much you know about oil spill media coverage.

Contacts: Tom Rosenstiel, Amy Mitchell or Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ at 202-419-3650

Entry filed under: Journalism, News & Views.