Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

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>This is just something their PR team put together to get some good publicity. Like paying media to rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill".

Source? I did some rudimentary checking and what you're describing seems like revisionist history and/or conspiracy to me. I checked the news section from wikipedia on that date[1], and it's referred to as "Explosion on Deepwater Horizon drilling rig", with no references to BP (in the title, there are references in the body). The linked sources also do the same. The same lack of BP reference also applies to NPR which had stories from the AP[2] as well as new orleans public radio[3]. Maybe BP bribed all of them, but that seems hard to believe. Looking at the wikipedia page and/or news articles, you can find a less sinister explanation for why it wasn't called the BP oil spill: the drilling rig was owned and operated by Transocean, not BP.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events/April_...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100421145719/https://www.npr.o...

[3] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126183...

The oil rig was owned by Transocean, but leased by BP.

"In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct. In April 2016, BP agreed to pay $20.8 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in United States history."

[1] https://www.britannica.com/event/Deepwater-Horizon-oil-spill

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

> The oil rig was owned by Transocean, but leased by BP.

Right, but "leased" in this context is closer to "leasing" a taxi than "leasing" a car. Transocean was described as the operator in news reports as well as on wikipedia. Also, most staff on the rig were not BP:

"A total of 126 workers were aboard. Seventy-nine were Transocean workers, six were BP employees and 41 were contracted."

>"In September 2014, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct. In April 2016, BP agreed to pay $20.8 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in United States history."

I'm not disputing BP's involvement/responsibility, just that it's at least somewhat justifiable to call it the "deepwater horizon oil spill" rather than the "bp oil spill", especially as the story was developing.

Also, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents, it seems pretty common to call energy accidents based on the plant/ship name, rather than the company name. For instance, we refer to "Three Mile Island accident", not the "EnergySolutions (the operator) nuclear disaster". The Exxon Valdez oil spil was a notable exception, but that's because the oil tanker was literally named "Exxon Valdez".

Sounds like the real full name was "BP deepwater horizon oil spill".

How much did transocean have to pay?

It's literally in the first sentence of the wikipedia article my dude

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill")

That sentence says that it's been called both, not that BP conspired to make the second less popular.

Would it be "conspiring" or simply public relations? I ask because when you say "conspire" you could be alluding to it being unlikely that an oil company would have PR people on staff to "massage" their public image. I think we can all agree this sort of PR is pretty common, whether or not it happened in this case.

I'm referring to this claim by the GP:

> Like paying media to rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill".

That would fall beyond the purview of PR and squarely into bribery, and there's no evidence that it happened.

Oh I see. I didn’t notice that claim, and I agree with you. Imagine thinking that you “bribe” media. You just become a stakeholder or advertiser and exert pressure!

It seems like BPs PR is at it here in this thread. Why does HN care so much about BPs image that they must clear it of any potential bribery claims?

HN guidelines:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

>Why does HN care so much about BPs image that they must clear it of any potential bribery claims?

You see nothing wrong with uncritically accepting any accusation of corporate wrongdoing? Is the truth not important to you?

> "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

Hmm, this seems to support my claims, since shilling isn't allowed.

> You see nothing wrong with uncritically accepting any accusation of corporate wrongdoing? Is the truth not important to you?

Going from not caring about BP's image to not caring about the truth is a pretty far jump wouldn't you say? Most people would not care so much about a corporation's image to defend it as much as it's being defended here, unless they have some obligation to or other connection to said corporation.

>also referred to as the "BP oil spill")

I think you're missing the point. That fragment being present in the wikipedia article just means... wikipedia recognizes that some people also refer to the incident as the "BP oil spill". I have no problem with people wanting it to call it the "BP oil spill". It might even be the correct term. After all, in the final judgement BP was found 67% responsible. What I do have a problem with is the parent post's accusation that BP paid "media" to 'rename the "BP oil spill" to "Deepwater oil spill"' for "good publicity" reasons. That's not supported by the evidence because news coverage referred to it as "Deepwater oil spill" and not "BP oil spill" from day 1, and that it's pretty common to not mention the company name in energy related accidents (see my other comment).

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