BP and Fake Journalists

The Wall Street Journal wrote an expose on BP’s Planet BP, and in house magazine for employees outlining the company’s efforts on the oil spill. BP sent its own public relations professionals in as journalists to report for the recently revived magazine. These “journalists” wrote company articles and public blogs on their first hand experiences of the oil spill. Now these so called journalists and their accounts have been panned by the main stream industry. Most notably The Huffington Post, and Treehugger.com, both very popular blogs which many credible sources of their respective topics.

Both blogs reported on the WSJ article. The Huffington Post uses the same direct quotes the WSJ article but adds colorful commentary in response. It goes through the Wall Street Journal almost quote by quote adding commentary. It includes a link to a similar article written by the Columbia Journalism Review discussing the same public relations professionals posing as journalists. The Huffington Post goes one step further by including an embedded video of link to a Monty Python video mentioned in the WSJ article. It doesn’t add any credibility to the article itself but it fits nicely in with the colorful commentary of the blogger. It also help visualize the hypocrisy the WSJ references in their article.

Treehugger.com, a popular blog operated by Discovery Communications, writes about the same WSJ article. They start the article by bashing BP, and linking to a story of BP denying journalists access to the Gulf. It references one main quote, the most scathing quote, from the WSJ article and then comments. The writer calls the BP’s story and account of “journalist” experiences “hilarious and dubious.” He goes on to call the “journalist” a hack, and the idea of BP sending in PR professionals to report and idiotic idea.

Here are two blogs written by reputable sites that covered both stories. The Huffington Post story was written for a mainstream public, outlining each quote from the original WSJ article. The Treehugger blog was written more for people highly involved in saving the planet. It aims to spark activism and further the hate for BP. I find both articles to be good, but the Huffington Post is more credible.