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Exxon's position was that they were open and honest with the press, but the author's experiences instead show a company that will do anything to cover its' tracks and its' inadequacies. He notes, "The response to stricken animals was forced upon Exxon by the Department of the Interior and the public. Exxon's interest in tourism was also one of alleviating its own bad reputation; most of the 1,090 miles of oiled shoreline had been insufficiently treated" (Keeble 227). Exxon did what it had to do to look good to the public. As the author notes, they "threw money" toward the problem but had no real plan of attack or idea how they would actually clean the entire affected area. Exxon used its power and money to look good, rather than really fix the problem.
Perhaps the most frightening part of this book is the power that Exxon wielded over the cleanup efforts and the media. Initially, Exxon was in charge of the cleanup, and they hired several of the contractors who came...
Because they were in charge, they had control of how the oil was cleaned up, what was reported to the media, and who was hired to cleanup the material. If any of the local residents disagreed with Exxon or its managers, they were immediately shut out of the cleanup efforts. Their neighbors were making outrageous sums of money working for Exxon and its contractors, but Exxon would not loosen the purse strings for many residents, and it created distrust, dissention, and animosity in the communities. The bottom line is that Exxon handled the cleanup poorly, and showed its true colors by attempting to control every aspect of the disaster, from the State of Alaska to the local people and the many media who descended on their area. They made things worse, and lost many people's respect.
References
Keeble, John. Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.
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