If a picture is worth a thousands words, then weekly videos showing vacationers frolicking at Florida Keys beaches, with no traces of the Gulf oil spill in sight, must count for a whole lot more.
That's the tack being taken by the Florida Keys & Key West tourism council "to communicate an accurate status of Keys tourism offerings during the Transocean/BP oil spill crisis."
Every weekend, the council gets videographers to document vacationers taking part in water-related and other activities in the area, from fishing to volleyball and swimming.
The minute-long Videos of the Week, which are time-stamped, are posted to the tourism council's website by 4 p.m. on Mondays, and are also aired on the council's YouTube channel.
Here's the first video, taken June 12-13:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAdM56LP5bY
"The Keys have received so much news coverage during the past month and many travel consumers mistakenly think our islands are suffering the same horrific and tragic impacts being seen on some norther Gulf coast shorlines," states Harold Wheeler, the tourism council director. "We fortunately are not and need to make the travel consumer understand that."
The apparently social-media savvy tourism council also added live webcams in the area.
Here's one, "Live from Key West," showing the scene at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park Beach.