While I previously posted about trying to give BP a break re their oil spill PR disaster, I’m moved to retract. Now that they’ve been caught altering and photo-shopping aerial images of their spill response, the facts seem to point to a company culture that’s prepared to fudge on fact, rather than learn from their past misrepresentations in this regard. BP says they only retouch images to help readers get a better view of photos, but at a time when the company’s every actions are so intensely under the microscope, this is a practice that only casts more suspicion on the company’s communications practices. Often in a PR crisis, the appearance of wrongdoing is just as influential as actual evidence of it.