Oil Sand Giant Syncrude Goes Into Hiding

onMay 3, 2007 @ 07:03 PDT

As reported in the Globe and Mail today, the oil sands giant Syncrude has censored a series of photos taken by 85-year-old U.S. energy conservation activist Liz Moore – a PR bungle of the first order.

Moore launched an informational website after a tour of Syncrude’s Fort McMurray operations. Along with some straight-up statistics, none of which seem incorrect or even overly critical, Moore included some garden-variety photos: big trucks, oily sand, bison grazing on reclaimed land – the kind of photos you can find on Syncrude’s own website, here.

Syncrude gave her a SLAPP, calling the pictures proprietary and demanding that she take them down off her site.

This was uncharacteristically clumsy for an organization that is usually careful about the face it presents to the public. The worst thing you could say about Moore’s presentation is that it’s a little boring. Left alone, it may or may not have found a small internet readership. Now Syncrude has guaranteed it an audience – and left us all wondering what the company has to hide.

Bad form, folks.

But now that you bring it up, what do you have to hide?

By Richard Littlemore

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