Posted on 07/03/2010 9:03:54 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
White House Enacts Rules Inhibiting Media From Covering Oil Spill By Noel Sheppard Created 07/03/2010 - 11:28
The White House Thursday enacted stronger rules to prevent the media from showing what's happening with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast.
CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that evening, "The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches -- 65 feet."
He elaborated, "Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can't get close enough to take that picture."
As the segment continued, Cooper expressed disgust with this rule repeating several times, "We are not the enemy here" (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Cubachi [1] via Hot Air [2]):
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: But we begin, as we do every night, "Keeping Them Honest".
This time, however, we're not talking about BP. We're talking about the government, a new a rule announced today backed by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, a rule that will prevent reporters and photographers and anyone else from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife and just about any place we need to be.
By now, you're probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they're working for because they're afraid of losing their jobs.
BP has said again and again that's not their policy. Yet, again and again, it has happened. And we have seen it. But that's BP.
And now the government apparently is getting in on the act, despite what Admiral Thad Allen promised about transparency just nearly a month ago. Here is what he said back then.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADMIRAL THAD ALLEN (RET.), NATIONAL INCIDENT COMMANDER: I have put out a written directive -- and I can provide it for the record -- that says the media will have uninhibited access anywhere we're doing operations, except for two things, if it's a security or a safety problem. That is my policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Uninhibited access, unless it's a security or safety problem.
Well, the Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches -- 65 feet.
Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can't get close enough to take that picture.
Shots of oil on beaches with booms, stay 65 feet away. Pictures of oil-soaked booms uselessly laying in the water because they haven't been collected like they should, you can't get close enough to see that. And, believe me, that is out there.
But you only know that if you get close to it, and now you can't without permission. Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges.
What's even more extraordinary is that the Coast Guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet, before scaling it back to 65 feet.
Here is how Admiral Allen defends it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Well, it's not unusual at all for the Coast Guard to establish either safety or security zones around any number of facilities or activities for public safety or for the safety of the equipment itself. We would do this for marine events, fireworks demonstrations, cruise ships going in and out of port.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So, this is the exact same logic that federal wildlife officials used to prevent CNN on two occasions from getting pictures of oiled birds that have been collected, pictures like -- like the -- well, that we're about to show you which are obviously deeply disturbing, pictures of oiled gulls that we just happened to catch. Suddenly, we were told after -- after that day we couldn't catch it anymore. So, keeping prying eyes out of marshes, away from booms, off the beaches is now government policy.
When asked why now, after all this time, Thad Allen said he had gotten some complaints from local officials worried people might get hurt. Now, we don't know who these officials are. We would like to. But transparency is apparently not a high priority with Thad Allen either these days.
Maybe he is accurate and some officials are concerned. And that's their right. But we've heard far more from local officials about not being able to get a straight story from the government or BP. I have met countless local officials desperate for pictures to be taken and stories written about what is happening in their communities.
We're not the enemy here. Those of us down here trying to accurately show what's happening, we are not the enemy. I have not heard about any journalist who has disrupted relief efforts. No journalist wants to be seen as having slowed down the cleanup or made things worse. If a Coast Guard official asked me to move, I would move.
But to create a blanket rule that everyone has to stay 65 feet away boom and boats, that doesn't sound like transparency. Frankly, it's a lot like in Katrina when they tried to make it impossible to see recovery efforts of people who died in their homes.
If we can't show what is happening, warts and all, no one will see what's happening. And that makes it very easy to hide failure and hide incompetence and makes it very hard to highlight the hard work of cleanup crews and the Coast Guard. We are not the enemy here.
We found out today two public broadcasting journalists reporting on health issues say they have been blocked again and again from visiting a federal mobile medical unit in Venice, a trailer where cleanup workers are being treated. It's known locally as the BP compound. And these two reporters say everyone they have talked to, from BP to the Coast Guard, to Health and Human Services in Washington has been giving them the runaround.
We're not talking about a CIA station here. We're talking about a medical trailer that falls under the authority of, guess who, Thad Allen, the same Thad Allen who promised transparency all those weeks ago.
We are not the enemy here.
Actually, Anderson, to this administration, anyone trying to tell the truth to the American people is the enemy.
Maybe if folks like you would have accurately reported the background of Barack Obama when he was running for president he wouldn't have assumed you were going to continue to misrepresent and ignore facts for his benefit after if he got elected.
To anyone with even a lukewarm intelligence quotient, this was an eminently foreseeable consequence of the media treating candidate Obama like a rock star. If they had acted like journalists back then instead of groupies, maybe they'd be treated with more respect today.
Now that some press members actually want to act like reporters again and aggressively try to cover what's going on in the Gulf Coast, the White House must feel somewhat spurned by his previously complicit press thereby necessitating rules to keep them from getting close to the truth now that they mysteriously seem interested in reporting it.
Of course, those on the other side of the aisle are not at all surprised, for like so many of the promises this man made during the campaign, we didn't believe his most transparent administration in history pledge either.
Maybe in the future media won't allow their love for a candidate to make them so gullible and compliant, but I wouldn't count on it.
concur - 20 yards is nothing at sea and limits ability to manuever if your that close. They are making hay about nothing here. But I don’t mind as long as it makes ob look bad.
The article ridicules the headline.
I don’t think BO is keeping anything under wraps.
Whatever he’s trying to hide must be pretty small if you can’t see it from 65 feet away.
In sunlight I can see (see,but not read) the numbers on a 25 yard slowfire target, and if I get a good group, I can definitely see the holes in the x ring. No scope. With my crappiest scope, I can actually read the numbers and see the one pesky 8.
As for details, if I use my good 300 mm lens, things are pretty clear from 100 yards away, and I can blow it up a little with photoshop. If you were 100 yards away, holding a bill, I probably could tell what denomination with my 300. So what tiny things is the vast conspiracy attempting to cover up?
The list, ping
And with a cell phone, you can get a whole lot closer, simply by calling the Coast Guard office in New Orleans and gaining access, which I've yet to hear a single report of a media outlet being denied access. Same with the flight restrictions, again, a simple call, and you get a waiver. And if that single call doesn't grant the waiver, you just send someone down to the federal court house to go talk to that judge who ruled against the Obama administration over the offshore oil drilling ban, and let him know that reasonable access is being denied.
It's extremely common for a working disaster scene for restrictions to be put in, here you've got restrictions for a few reasons - to give the larger craft room to move in, to minimize the opening and closing of containment booms, and to keep people out of the way of clean up operations.
If any media outlet really believed these restrictions were impeding their coverage, they'd be breaking the rules, and just itching to have someone call them on it, and then go take it to court to get the rule overturned. But most media outlets are quite happy not to have the expense of covering a disaster that spans so many miles, and doesn't afford easy access to devastation for them to picture.
Did anyone listen to Coast to Coast AM the other night when two physicists pronounced there were fissures growing in the gulf floor due to a gigantic Methane gas bubble? It was advised that all gulf states be evacuated. There is certainly worse to come. Tell me, who is to benefit by keeping this alleged truth to be withheld from the American people?
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No, I missed that one. My favorite episode of Coast to Coast was when Chief Red Elk expounded on the lizard people who live under the earth. He sounded like a very interesting and nice man.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/elk-red/5687
One can only conclude this government is totalitarian.
_______________
Working on it anyway. No totalitarian government can maintain power without a terror though.
I LOVE your rant! PREACH IT BROTHER!
Mrkd
I just _knew_ he was one of those turds that puts his dirty damned feet up on a desk.
I detest that posturing affectation.
“So what tiny things is the vast conspiracy attempting to cover up?”
Dead and dying birds, fish, dolphins, turtles mostly. Of course the limit is 65 feet outside the boom. The boom is supposed to be placed outside the oil. So on beaches and choppy water the animals end up being pretty darn hard to locate.
But it seems you’re ok with the govt dictating what you can and what you cannot see.
If the feds can evacuate millions of people from the East Coast they can sure as heck deport all the illegals!
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Yes. They also attempted, and failed, to disarm residents in and around New Orleans.
How is that swine flu vaccine coming along btw?
God DAMN him!!!
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In due course. BAIPA alone would have secured that.
Barring a whole lot of repenting going on, BHO is in deep coals.
Well when you are talking about CNN, I would question that statement!
Just add your name to the clueless idiot list. You are past all help. Really.
Oh, and Happy Independence day.
I too am stunned by the FReeper defense of CENCORSHIP and, as I asked above, how many even bothered to watch the link to the TEN MINUTE CNN piece?
About SEVEN minutes of the interview is with two Louisianna Parish Presidents who flat out said What is being reported, from the Government, is LIES! The number of skimmers (on paper) is many times more than what they SEE off their shores; same with miles of boom and timelyness of changing oil soaked boom. What is being reported is NOT what they are seeing in their Parishes!
And face it folks, the spirit of this thread, no matter how many ‘field goal,’ Waco, or gun sight comparisons that are made, is defending the indefensible...Obama’s reaction. Local, LA Parish Presidents were saying ‘the feds are lying, we need reporters down here, with cameras to show the lies’ and we have FReepers, either not watching the video or just thinking its too much fun to make fun of Cooper than it is address government censorship of what is happening in the Gulf.
I’ll ask again, how many watched the complete TEN minutes?
The Coast Guard using its well-established regulative authority to tell gawkers and paparazzi to stay 65 ft away from working boats is hardly censorship. They can photograph what they like and publish what they like.
The Coast Guard are trained dedicated professional men and women serving their country, just like the marines. Try not denigrating them too much. This did not come from the white house. It is just a normal procedure that the Coast Guard follows whenever there is an incident of this kind at sea.
The Coast Guard also frequently establishes safety perimeters around transiting warships. Is THAT censorship? Or just a reasonable precaution.
I love all the landlubbers here who are so ignorant of what constitutes safe navigation on the sea.
Quite simply, man, if you operate a boat in a way that makes collision appear imminent when you have a duty to stand clear, then the other boat is quite within its rights to cut its gear and take action to avoid. It can then turn around and sue for the damage and lost equipment in a court of law. Additionally, the perp of this navigational error has probably committed additional felonies having to do with intentionally harming the environment, etc.
You clearly have no idea how many mindless numbskulls there are out with boats, big boats, fast boats, with powerful engines, that can cause messes in seconds that will take years to recover from.
No professional mariner would condone the sort of interference with marine operations that you are condemning the Coast Guard for prohibiting.
In no way did I insult the Coast Guard..mand this edict came from Thad Allen, in a press briefingan with Gibbs, at the WH. It is in the CNN piece.
Maybe the Coast Guard also wants the media there...because, again referencing the two Louisianna Parish Presidents, who said ‘the Feds are lying, the amount of skimmers being reported (by the Feds) on paper IS NOT what we have in our waters.” Same sentiments with the boom. Someone is lying. Can career Coast Guard call out the lies? No. That is what the media is needed for.
Where is Fox? Why wasn’t Greta or BOR on that beach with those two exasperated LA pols?
The story isn’t Cooper, or even the 65 feet. Its elected LA officials saying the Feds are lying (not providing the help/assets they say they are). That is what needs addressed.
Watch the video.
I spent some time on a minesweep. As an officer I had to get permission from the bos'un to go on deck when we were running gear, and he kept a closer eye on me than on his gear and his men until I was safely out of the way. He didn't trust officers an inch. A landlubbing reporter would be even worse.
We are talking working boats with heavy loads in rolling seas, here, man. Even the smallest screw up and lots of people get hurt. The sea is still a cruel taskmaster.
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