Question Control

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June 9, 2010

CNN's Cooper questions BP's control of information

In an interview this week with the "Sun," CNN's Anderson Cooper had some strong words for the way in which BP, with the help of the Coast Guard, was able to control the flow of information about the monstrous oil spill in the gulf -- particularly in the early going.

Cooper is in his third week of doing some excellent reporting from the gulf. I guess you could call him one of those "talking heads" from cable TV that President Obama went out of his way to disparage in an interview Tuesday with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today." But, in fact, Cooper and his CNN crew are among those who have been battling the last month to get viewers some trustworthy and reliable information about the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history -- despite BP's best efforts to keep U.S. citizens in the dark.

QUESTION: As a journalist, you expect resistance sometimes in trying to get information to readers and viewers. But what journalists have encountered in the gulf sounds like above and beyond. How would you characterize your experience?

COOPER: I think it's rare where you have a situation where a private company has this much power over this operation and therefore the flow of information. I think maybe there's a learning curve for the Coast Guard and the U.S. government on this, but it's sort of unlike any situation I've been in before where there's a private company, which has very clear finanacial interests at stake, and they're the ones making decisions it seems, at least early on they were the ones making decisions, that affect hundreds of thousands of people. And yet, early on, they didn't seem accountable. And even now, they don't seem transparent."

QUESTION: It seems like from the beginning the administration wanted to believe all the pretty lies or low ball estimates BP was serving up.

COOPER: Down here, people don't have much faith in anything BP says -- rightly or wrongly. ...BP has made a series of statements over the course of this that simply can't be verified. And, in fact, have simply turned out not to be true. I mean, they don't talk to me, they don't come on my show. I think that's one of the important things about actually being down here and seeing it for yourself. They make public statements, and then you go out an see for yourself that their public statements don't necessarily add up to the truth.

QUESTION: Now you said, 'They don't talk to me. They don't come on my show.' You guys have invited them, haven't you?

COOPER: We've invited them every single night for the entire time we've been down here. I did manage to get one BP official once I think three weeks ago -- maybe more. Since that time, we called them every single night and invited them on, and they either say they're too busy or don't return our calls. They appear on other shows, but they don't appear on mine. We'd love to have them. I extend the invitation constantly. Every night, I extend the invitation.

QUESTION: That's astonishing. I mean, everybody plays that game: If they don't like the coverage, or don't think it is favorable enough, they try to 'punish' you by freezing you out. But for the administration to let BP control the flow of information the way they have, and then allow them to reward some news outlets and punish others, is outrageous.

COOPER: They've appeared on other shows on CNN, and that's their perogative not to talk to us. But for a company whose CEO (Tony Hayward) has said early on that they wanted to be as transparent as possible, I think it's clear by their actions that they do not have an interest in being truly transparent. For instance, [last] Thursday night, they had this incredibly important capping operation, an operation which is being watched with baited breath by people around the world. And BP reluctantly provided a video feed only after members of Congress, like Ed Markey (D-Mass.) insisted they provide it. But they don't provide any kind of narration of what's happening.

For example, when a space shuttle goes off, there's someone on an open mike explaining what is happening. And BP could have easily had someone explaining what was going on in real time -- just like with a space shuttle. But they don't. And it boggles my mind that here's this operation that's of crucial importance to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the entire gulf region -- and certianly people around the world -- and BP makes no effort to inform people in a timely manner in real time what's happening. You have to wait up until the next morning to get some information about what occurred more than 12 hours before.

In fact, the night of the capping operation, we were on the air and I was saying this and we called up BP to get some kind of explanation, and we got an answering machine. And when we called the unified command center, there was one guy who was a telephone answerer who said, 'Look, all the people who know what's going on have left for the night.' It's very frustrating for people here to get a sense that there's no transperancy, and I think that is desrving of criticism."