Crisis PR at BP

Watching how BP handles the major oil pollution incident off the US Gulf coast is going to be very instructive in terms of crisis PR.   The severity of the situation is immense, even for a company of BP's size and experience in crisis PR situations. It is also in a politically sensitive area just recovering from the effects of Hurricaine Katrina in 2005 which has given an added dimension to US coverage and that is an aspect which is somewhat different than many crisis PR situations facing organisations.

My impression is that after a slow start BP is starting to get its crisis PR team into action with mainstream media in the UK!   However the USA is another matter and social media also looks weak.  The comments on Twitter suggest an increasingly hostile reaction as more information comes out but also quizzical that BP does not appear to have an active policy of communicating across all channels of communication including Twitter.