ABSTRACT
Twenty-one years later, when the deep water oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico became the nation’s worst environmental disaster, the media landscape was almost unrecognizable and news coverage had changed dramatically. Newspapers had retrenched, not only because of a decade-long economic downturn, but because of competition from a myriad of Internet voices. Advertising revenues had plummeted, siphoned off by exponentially growing Web competitors that caused what seemed to be an endless round of cost-cutting measures and staff reductions. Network television sought to adapt to declining audiences and shrinking advertising revenues brought about by the explosion in the number of cable and satellite channels and aggressive Internet and social media competition that often carried news or entertainment features (at times with questionable accuracy or objectivity) with video shot by amateurs. Public relations was finding it difficult to market traditional news releases because of a declining “news hole” in print media, although professionals were learning to adapt to the new media in disseminating messages.
