Efforts to Limit the Flow of Spill News

[groovedaddy]

When the operators of Southern Seaplane in Belle Chasse, La., called the local Coast Guard-Federal Aviation Administration command center for permission to fly over restricted airspace in Gulf of Mexico, they made what they thought was a simple and routine request.

A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.

“We were questioned extensively. Who was on the aircraft? Who did they work for?” recalled Rhonda Panepinto, who owns Southern Seaplane with her husband, Lyle. “The minute we mentioned media, the answer was: ‘Not allowed.’ ”

Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/us/10access.html?th&emc=th

[notesdev]

1. Doesn't it seem

that they're spending more effort stopping the flow of information than the flow of oil?

[Lorien]

2. So BP now runs the Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration?

So what are the teabaggers whining about? Government is dead and everything has already been privatized!

[groovedaddy]

3. They've absolutely kicked the shit out of freedom of the press! n.t

[RKP5637]

5. Transparency? n/t

[RKP5637]

4. This is getting bizarre... n/t