Jeez Dude, He’s Got a Lav Mic On

CNN’s Rick Sanchez, desperately trying to make some we were there first drama out of a sadly necessary BP CEO PR appearance. Or: trying to wring tabloid revenue out of a yet-undefined, heavily-scripted corporate necessity.  Svanberg, if it’s not obvious from watching this staged newspool footage, is saying “get him out of there” to that cameraman because he instinctively wants to appear like he’s in control of something right now. He’s not yelling at some random photog who might reveal this mess to the world–Svanberg is the reason the cameraman is there in the first place.  It’s not much more than a strong-willed actor telling his DP what to do.  Or, as it were, “news.”

Sanchez, sad as he is, and The Huffington Post, whose “BP Is ‘Big And Important’: BP Chairman Strikes Out At Critics, CEO Scolds Photographer At Oil Spill Site” are acting out of economic (not moral) self-interest.  They didn’t cause the catastrophe, but they don’t seem to have any particular interest in it ending, either.  If they work just as hard as Svanberg is to frame it for their own audiences, they’ll make bank the longer it draws out.  People scooping sludge, about people scooping sludge.

Filed under: BP  CNN  Huffington Post  selling culture  tragedy tourism  ugh  ugh ugh ugh