Watchdogging BP: Oil Giant Restricts Press Access to Alabama Beach
July 8th, 2010A MoJo Video by Glynn Wilson
Videography by Stew Jones
GULF SHORES, Ala. — While the Obama administration continues to say the national policy is that no American journalist can be restricted from access to oiled beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, contractors for the British Petroleum oil giant seem not to have gotten the word.
BP executives must be thinking that since they broke the Gulf, they now own it.
Will the press and the American people and the administration stand for it?
The employee for the BP Contractor Clean Harbors said the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department arrested a member of the media on Tuesday, but a check with the sheriff’s department shows no such arrest.
Meanwhile, videographer John Wathen shows contractors in Orange Beach covering up oil on the beach with sand, rather than excavating and hauling it away.
A John Wathen Video
Related Story
Caught Restricting the Press and Public Again, BP Clarifies Policy on Access Limits
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July 8th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
The BP blunder and plunder
continues.
BP is really a sorry, sorry bunch!
“Hell will freeze over” before I
ever purchase anything BP!
Continue the OUTSTANDING reports!!!
July 8th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Something to explore based on the above video. BP seems to have assumed some category of police authority on public land. Now the state trooper allowed free passage, according to Obama policy. Which you confirmed. So if BP has the firm belief that they can assume jurisdiction can mean only 1 of 2 things.
A. There is some provision hidden in official government documents that gives BP default authority, and this provision was not vetted by government authorities, and perhaps our legislators do not know about it; or,
B. We are looking at a phenomenon of cascading nonfeasance and misfeasance in which government authorities at each level are too frightened to make decisions in conditions of uncertainty. By that I mean they are unsure of the repercussions of defying or challenging BP — because they are getting mixed signals from the next level up.
Either way I believe a great miscarriage of governance has occurred. The “social contract” on which democracies are based — i.e., individuals and groups cede some of their independence and autonomy to governing bodies that they endorse for the sake of the greater good. This sense of contract has broken down. And this is a concept that extends back in time to the Magna Carta. It is the foundation of constitutional law. And what does our Declaration of Independence assert when the contract is violated? We have been far too quiet, and less confident of our power than the English peers of the 13th Century, or the founding fathers of the 18th Century, in the face of the king’s authority.
We do not have a social contract with BP. Indeed we owe BP only what government has declared by ordinance. And that government is not upholding the implicit doctrine of a social contract. I am going to end here. Anyone can read the Declaration for themselves to discover the remedy for a contract abridged as proposed by its signers. Or anyone can read contract law and discover the legal standing of any contract when it has been abridged.
I doubt that
July 8th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
“i just want my life back” Did anyone expect things run by Capitalism and ObamaINC to be any different than precisely what they are. This is not a silly coincidence.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Good reporting.
July 8th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Thank you so much. I just found your website, and immediately found myself donating $20 to you. This article is so well-written and accurate, I truly look forward to reading more of your journalism.
This is coming from a person that has worked with over 2,000 injured, oiled, or orphaned seabirds and participated in oiled wildlife response during several spills.
You got your information right. Keep up the good work! Thank you.
July 9th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
You should send this video to the ireporter CNN thing, and any other media outlet u can upload it to – or at least shop it around to them. Good work.
July 9th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Hey, I just produce it, link to it the on the news page and share it on Facebook. Some people would say that is too much self-promotion.
If other people want to point out to others that we are doing some pioneering work here, hey, that’s cool : )
July 9th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Before I forget to say it, this is clearly what’s going on.
BP contractors are buying local police and intimidating anyone they can away from taking pictures and video of this disaster. When challenged, they will ultimately back down.
July 10th, 2010 at 10:59 am
BP’s secret 3rd Oil Spill The Big Red One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJEpxMkIn2c
July 10th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Jefferson said that newspapers without a government are better than government with no newspapers. His meaning, of course, is that freedom of communication is sacred for a free society.
The attempts by BP, which appear to be aided unofficially by local authorities, is the latest in a long line of attempts by government and corporate interests to control news over the last few decades. Exposure of these travesties here on Locust Fork and elsewhere is a vital defense of that freedom.
Thanks, Glynn. Excellent reporting.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Two videographers have managed to cover what the media CLAIMS it cannot.
The media is corporate owned and is lying about access.
When did the media start asking to get footage of public beaches? If I can do it (and I have), so could any journalist. They are lazy and are accustomed to spoon fed stories. They are the biggest problem facing our democracy right now.
Lockust Fork is part of the solution-
but let there be no doubt that the blame for lack of REAL coverage lies squarely on the shoulders of the corporate media.
July 12th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Keep up the good work, it is a long road ahead to change things. Working at getting this to sink in to people who think they have no dog in this fight is the hardest part…