By Rachael Woodhouse
GCN Live.com
As summer faded away, so did news about one of the biggest stories of 2010: the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. After months of frustration at the mainstream media near-blackout, and the independent media’s steadfast reporting to get the truth, the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher has largely faded from the minds of most Americans. Not so for the residents of Biloxi, Mississippi. In what would normally be their biggest season for tourism, coastal towns in Mississippi suffered a devastating blow to their economies.
As part of the economic and environmental recovery effort on the Gulf Coast, GCN superstar talk hosts Doug Stephan (“Good Day”, “Talk Radio Countdown”) and Kate Delaney (“America Tonight”) put in two days’ work as part of a media effort to shore up the tourism industry in the gulf coast region. In what is being billed as “the largest radio and social media event in the history of Mississippi”, Delaney and Stephan joined 12 other nationally syndicated talk hosts and bloggers for “Gulf Radio Row”.
Talkers and locals come together in Biloxi. (PHOTO: WLOX-13)
The brainchild of the Mississippi Development Authority, “Gulf Radio Row” was organized to enlist the help of top radio personalities to tell the stories of the locals: how they bounced back after this summer’s disaster, and how the region’s lifeblood industries (fishing, golfing, restaurants, real estate, seafood) have rebounded.
Good Day host Doug Stephan shared his experiences on the air, including his own experiences with the Transportation Security Administration. Stephan said his Biloxi-Gulfport TSA experience, rather than being torturous, was actually humorous, and he recanted the tale in his trademark sunny style. “I said to the lady, ‘I’m not going through the new machine.’ She looks at me and scowls, and says ‘Come over here’. And so she puts me in this ringed, cordoned-off box, and I’m standing there, four or five minutes go by, and half a dozen people get patted down. Finally, I said to this lady, ‘I’ve got a plane to catch’, she scowls at me and she says ‘ok’, and she calls this big Black dude over to check me out. Very nice guy; he was six-foot-eight if he was two feet tall, [with] hands as big as you can possibly imagine.” Stephan said as he was patted down, he couldn’t help but laugh as the TSA agent gave him a thorough once-over that included a tickle-inducing squeeze of the groin. All in a day’s work for a veteran broadcast personality trying to help the good folks of Mississippi!
Veteran broadcaster Doug Stephan takes to the airwaves with William Richardson and Mike Jones, discussing the rejuvenation of cities along the gulf in Mississippi.
A pumped-up Kate Delaney sent this note back to the GCN home base on Friday morning: “The people here have wild stories to about water smashing through their windows and the trees being bent in half. After Katrina they were bouncing back and then the oil spill hurt tourism again, but a $15 million dollar check from BP has helped. They have 11 casinos here that make 1 billion dollars in revenue. I talked to all kinds of people including a woman who just moved to Mississippi 10 weeks before Katrina hit from New Orleans; she lost two houses. The big story is that on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, they weren’t knee deep in oil and had no tar balls, but the exaggerations in the media kept people away in droves. And losing six months of money from what is normally a big season took a chunk out of the economy.”
For Thursday night’s show, Delaney welcomed Mary Beth Wilkerson, Director of Tourism for the State of Mississippi, to America Tonight. Delaney asked Wilkerson how the Deepwater Horizon disaster impacted the region’s recovery from the five short years since Hurricane Katrina. “We had turned that corner, and for tourism, the industry was rebounding. Our numbers were coming up and we were feeling really, really good about the industry here on the Mississippi gulf coast, which is 1/3 of our tourism industry for the state of Mississippi.”
“We were feeling really, really good about the product and the visitation here on the gulf coast”, Wilkerson said, “and then the spring happens, and the oil spill crisis, and inquiries started declining, bookings started to decline, and we knew that we had to do something.”
“We were able to join forces down here with our coastal partners and put together a very aggressive marketing campaign and PR campaign to let our consumers and our customers know that the product down here, the tourism product, was still vibrant and still viable.”
So how does a state devastated by two events just five years apart recuperate economically and bring the tourists back? “You’ve got heritage and culture here in Mississippi unlike any other state. You’ve got a gaming industry here that offers top-name entertainment and other amenities.”
But ultimately, it’s the mystique of the rural South, Wilkerson said, that brings the tourists to the yard. “As we have positioned it, you have quaint coastal towns on each side of this core of a gaming industry, so you can come here and experience the excitement of gaming and top-name entertainment, but then you can get out and experience the artisans of the community, the culture.”
Wilkerson and others are hopeful the media blitz of Gulf Radio Row will help revive tourism and boost the profile of Mississippi as a diverse state full of hearty survivors.
For now, it appears that the worst times of 2010 may be behind Biloxi and other coastal cities. The story of the tough communities on America’s gulf coast is being written as a triumphal tale of overcoming adversity from near-catastrophic events, both natural and man-made.
*****America Tonight can be heard live Sunday – Friday 11:00 p.m. – 3:00a.m. The Doug Stephan Show can be heard Monday-Friday 3:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. CST. *****
For a flashback on GCN’s coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher, check out these stories:
Gulf Oil Gusher: Fears Mount, Damage Worsens (May 31st, 2010)
Liquid Nitrogen: A Fix For Oil Gusher? (June 4th, 2010)
Attorney/Pundit Paints Legal Liability Picture for BP (June 9th, 2010)
