Sunday 21 November 2021 · below the Index · spike
Beijing vessel identified in California oil spill
A vessel operated by Capetanissa Maritime and identified as the Beijing was determined to be the likely cause of an October 2021 oil spill off California. The identification was reported on 2021-11-20.
Peak 66.2 on Sunday 21 November 2021. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Media-led, both over the window and on the peak day. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 65% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Thursday 11 November 2021.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 0% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 7% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 0% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Beijing vessel identified as likely tanker behind California oil spillmsn.com · 2021-11-20
- Capetanissa Maritime-owned Beijing vessel identified as tanker that likely caused October oil spilldailymail.co.uk · 2021-11-20
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title. fewer than three independent outlets.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (57/57 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Beijing vessel identified in California oil spill, peak 66.2 on 21 November 2021. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2021-beijing-vessel-identified-in-california-oil-spill/