Friday, December 14, 2007

Discoveries Made

Discoveries Made About the Exxon Valdez to Share With the Class

Prior to researching my final paper, in which I wrote about the Exxon Valdez case, I was ready to pile on Exxon Corporation as so many others have done. After all, the captain was drunk at the time of the accident, right? Wrong. Not only was he not drunk, he was acquitted of the charge. This was just one of several very interesting discoveries I made. Surprisingly, the evidence was there that the company did plenty of things well. However, the one thing that it did most badly on – besides not having a clear and consistent crisis plan but relying instead on the plan of one of their partners – was that the company never fully appreciated the value and power of fast, accurate and efficient PR. They did not contact and reach out to the media when the accident happened. When the media caught wind of it, Exxon allowed the media to frame the accident, which placed the corporation in the position of being reactive from beginning to end.

1 comment:

jacqueline said...

Denise,

I liked your final paper--it was well balanced, and with a spill that big, there was plenty of blame to go around. Exxon should still shoulder the lion's share--it is the profit-maker in this game, and if the company truly wanted to preserve the environment while making a ton o' money, then officials should have been in contact with a lot of regulators and community members to ensure measures were in place to prevent such an accident, or secondly, to mitigate the results of such an accident.

Take care,

J