Oil Spills and Pollution A couple examples of attempts at early public image boostings that ended up backfiring include a media pay-off and a skewed company-produced video that recorded the cleanup progress. Exxon offered to reimburse an Alaskan Public Radio station for expenses the station incurred while covering the spill. The total amounted to a little over $32,000 and was seen as a not-so-subtle bribe to everyone except Exxon themselves. Another time, a crew of cameramen were filming workers that were cleaning up the oil-soiled beaches and spent great amounts of time on a relatively pristine strip of sandy beach whe