It’s been 58 days since an explosion that took the lives of 11 oil rig workers and began the catastrophe that is now the worst oil spill in U.S. history, and if it continues unabated might be the worst ever known.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has garnered media attention across the world as it continues to pour hundreds of thousands if not millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day. It’s not only been an ecological disaster for the company and gulf states, it’s been a PR disaster from day one as well. Everyone is lining up to make sure BP knows it.

I remember picking up a case study book in my PR 400 level class in college, and in it was a study on how Exxon Valdez handled their spill. It spoke about the major blunders Exxon made while trying to minimize the effects of the spill. I have little doubt BP’s utter failure on the PR front will replace the Exxon case in this book.

In the early days of the spill, BP continually tried to downplay the amount of oil leaking out of its pipe. BP CEO Tony Hayward even went so far as to call the amount of oil “relatively tiny” when compared to the “very big ocean.” That may be a bit hard to swallow given the vast amounts of oil covered waters and beaches.

While in an interview with NBC where Hayward attempted to apologize for the disruption the spill called he even went so far as to caustically remark, “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.” Whoa. Come again? Did he really say that?

As reports began to surface about large underwater plumes of oil caused by the dispersant BP used to break it up, BP’s chief engineering officer even went so far as to try and debate what constitutes a plume. Instead of owning up to the problem, they tried to play word games around the definition.

The company has been less than cooperative with the media as the spill progresses, often denying members of the media access to flyovers to photograph the spill or to speak with workers on the clean up crew. All while claiming an open door policy. The problem with denying the media, and then saying you aren’t, is it’s the media that gets to report whether you indeed are or not. It’s hard to cover the truth behind photos though such as those in this incredible, evolving New York Times photo story.

Word games, quick outbursts of insensitive comments, the inability to control the spill despite saying they could and denying media access have all built on BP’s PR disaster, rapidly destroying the companies credibility. Even spoof Twitter accounts have popped up to satirize and criticize the company, gaining a large audience of followers.

So when BP rolled out it $50million dollar ad campaign across TV and print publications like the Wall Street Journal, with Hayward apologizing and saying, “We will make this right,” it was a case of too little, too late in the public court of opinion. They had virtually nothing left to bank on and little credibility in the eyes of the American public.

BP’s mistake was to try and do anything but accept immediate responsibility for their actions and the conviction to see this problem solved. Instead they tried to pass blame, seemed perturbed to be bugged by this and have continually played games of misinformation or half information with the media and public.

When working with crisis clients, we always advise them to step forward and take responsibility. While its difficult to face the immediate criticism, and the truth that you’ve caused a fault, the perils of trying to downplay and hide your crisis will always come back to haunt you. In today’s open digital world, the truth will find a way to surface.

As for BP, it’s brand reputation will take decades to recover from this incident, if it ever does, costing it billions of dollars in the meantime. The only hope for the company now is to quickly find a solution to the spill and work toward repairing the damage its done with humility and honesty.