Dirty little secret: BP oil remains, media doesn't

Posted At : October 28, 2010 1:36 PM | Posted By : Steve McGrath
Related Categories: Cleantech,Commentary

The media decides what we’ll worry about. Today, that would be the economy, midterm elections, two wars, a tsunami, a new Bin Laden tape and a party drink dubbed “blackout in a can.”

Nothing much on BP these days, so the Gulf of Mexico oil spill must be pretty much taken care of, right?

Not according to this article in USA Today, which reports that:

· The length of shoreline where oil is present has increased from 287 miles in early July to 320 today.

· In Bay Jimmy, La., alone, 32,000 gallons of oil were sucked up in a recent 10-day period.

· Oil, not surprisingly, is clinging tenaciously to marsh grass.

· Cooler fall and winter weather will thicken the oil and make it harder to extract.

· Cleanup worker count has dropped by nearly two-thirds, from 47,000 at the height of the spill to 16,200.

The disaster hasn’t gone away, but where’s the media? Well, kudos to USA Today for the above info, and to Frontline for kicking BP’s tail on Tuesday night. But in general, the media follows the conflict, the drama and the fancies of its paying audience to those insipid places we yearn to go. As a result, we’ve moved on from Afghanistan. We’ve moved on from Haiti. And we’ve moved on from the Gulf of Mexico.

To document this catastrophe fatigue, we searched for news stories on “Deepwater Horizon” (the name of the exploded rig and shorthand for the entire debacle) from April 2010 through Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 10:30 EST. Here’s what we found.

As you can see, the media bombards us with stories from April through July. Then the fatigue sets in. Just six months after the worst oil spill in history, the media is practically silent.

But the problems remain. That’s why Sean Penn is still in Haiti. That’s why Billy Nungesser is still in Plaquemines Parish. That’s why BP workers are still cleaning up the oil – some of them, at least.

Meanwhile, the media, drawn by our own insatiable appetite for trifling entertainment, has moved on to … well, Brett Favre’s … ankle.

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Interpreting Gladwell: Why the revolution will be tweeted

Posted At : October 18, 2010 11:40 AM | Posted By : Andy Beaupre
Related Categories: Social Media,Commentary

Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in The New Yorker stirred a reaction.

“Small change – why the revolution will not be tweeted” draws a clear distinction between weak-tie activism and strong-tie activism. The former is aligned with social media, the latter with “critical friends” and hierarchical organizational structures. He cites the American civil rights movement and Al Qaeda (before it became a loosely bound “network”) as two examples of strong-tie activism.

True activism, Gladwell says, embodies critical elements social media can never deliver: a feverish zealousness that’s “high-risk” where people are motivated to “make a real sacrifice.” By comparison, social media is “low-risk” activism where people get involved “by not asking too much of them.”

Gladwell explains, “The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.”

Some critics have cited his misunderstanding of social media. My reaction was different; I think Gladwell gets it. There is a difference between sacrificial activism and easy activism. It’s an important distinction. What I don’t agree with is minimizing the role social media plays in seeding activism. Unstructured, weak-link-ties can eventually inspire personal commitment and real sacrifice. Angus Johnson makes a case for this in his post.

American Cancer Society’s birthday movement, for example, has gone from zero to 100,000+ Facebook friends in a few months. While the vast majority of people may never become “feverish” activists, they are playing an important role in raising money, getting involved and raising consciousness. Yes, fighting cancer is different from fighting intolerance. But, it’s not an either-or scenario; the two can (and do) co-exist in driving movements forward.

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The power of the ribbon

Posted At : October 7, 2010 1:44 PM | Posted By : Steve McGrath
Related Categories: Commentary

Today's blog is written by Carrie O'Neil, a senior account executive with Beaupre.

We’ve been thinking a lot about the pink ribbon lately. Like everyone else, we’re seeing it everywhere during this Breast Cancer Awareness month – on T-shirts, yogurt containers, umbrellas, golf clubs, even Monday Night Football. With the pink ribbon marketing machine in motion, however, it’s easy to lose sight of what it really means.

An estimated 192,370 women and 1,910 American men were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2009. It’s the second most common form of cancer in women. Suffice it to say, it claims too many lives.

Although the statistics are harrowing and the marketing effective, the pink ribbon is personal to us. It signifies a beloved person who is suddenly absent from our weekly staff meetings, client check-in calls, and smack-talk sessions where she loyally touts her Buffalo Bills. Her son, in his soccer gear, smiles at us from the Beaupre Buddy Board, but he’s growing so fast we’re due for some new snapshots. When she and her husband dropped in last week between physical therapy and chemo, she inspired us all with her trademark good humor. Go figure: she was making it easy for us.

The pink ribbon has a face this year. Stay strong, Darby. We are with you, and look forward to our walk in your name on Oct. 17.

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