July 6, 2010

Watch: The Mystery BP Twitterer Revealed!

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Leroy Stick is the brains behind a fake BP twitter account called BPGlobalPR that’s racked up more than 180,000 followers. Need to Know’s Erin Chapman grabbed an exclusive on-camera interview with him at the TEDxOilSpill conference.

Stick (an alias) began feeding his updates to humor-starved news junkies on May 19 and — like the oil — hasn’t slowed since. Some of his recent status reports include:

As long as we can get loaded potato skins at T.G.I.Friday’s, seafood can suck it.

Tropical Storms = 1/2 days.

Anyone accusing us of tarring and feathering pelicans is ignorant. They feathered themselves.

In an undisclosed location, Stick agreed to answer some questions about his methods and motivation, as well as what BP is getting wrong in their PR campaign. He appeared in a ski mask and demanded that we disguise his voice (so please excuse the audio

This video was produced by Need to Know as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For Mother Jones’ interview with Leroy Stick, click here.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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