White House Enacts Rules Inhibiting Media From Covering Oil Spill

Newsbusters ^ | 7/3/10 | Noel Sheppard

[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.

[DBeers]

Let’s see if any media challenge this in court. It seems like another unfounded edict from dear leader e.g. the drilling moratorium...

[Solitar]

Nothing to see here. Move along.
Obama orders evacuation from the Gulf Coast of all "non-essential" personnel AND impose safety restrictions, aka "martial law" inland for a few hundred miles?
It accomplishes several government goals:
1) Preventing "the people" from being in danger from the oil, and
2) Preventing "the people" from being in danger from hurricanes, and
3) Preventing "the people" from seeing too much and asking too many questions, and
4) Preventing "the people" from being too vigilant of their government and voting against the government's interests.
And since such evacution would have to be done with government "persuasion", the more goals are accomplished:
5) Disarming all who resist or question the government's efforts to protect them, and
6) Uncooperative people (Tea Party, Conservatives, and those who cling to guns and religion) are "relocated" to camps "for their own protection", and
7) Uncooperative people in the camps have to vote by absentee ballots--which, like military ballots, are not counted.
8) Republican, conservative, and Democrat resisters become felons not allowed to vote.
9) Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Lousiana, Alabama, and Georgia vote Democrat for Congress and President.

They also include the border states of Arizona, New Mexico, and the Republican California (southeast of LA) for their protection from border violence, guns, drugs, kidnapping, etc.

And if other southern States such as South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas or upper south states such as Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri or conservative plains and mountain states such as South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming object, then just declare them insurrectionist and put them under martial law too.
Gee, does this sound familiar?

[FreeStateYank]

65 ft does not seem particularly far away- cameramen will just have to drag out the big zoom. Furthermore, TV folks wading around in muck then sensationalizing the images are not helpful. I’ve seen some dunk their bare hands into goop. Wonder when they’ll sue for damages for a rash.

We know estuaries are in trouble. What I would really like is honest, impartial reporting- not a competition to see which media outlet can ‘capture’ the most pathetic oiled bird image.

Cripes, all of the networks, including Fox ran footage of what I believe to have been from the Valdez accident- heavy, black crude lapping on the shoreline, while talking about the BP situation. Shameful.

I detest Zero and his administration, but the media are whores and Cooper is just getting his panties in a twist for the theater.

[Biggirl]

The seeds for a new American Revolution.

[Varsity Flight]

Anyone wonder why/if the media shouldn’t actually be invited on the vessels themselves!

Regarding no negative coverage of the Undocumented one, they are afraid to report negative stories on him as they will lose their main base, colleges students and the majority of certain ethnic voters.

[1000 silverlings]

and he never will give the blame to the One to whom it belongs

[WOSG]

It would be more effective if you simply put this Obama quote:

“he day in which the earth began to heal and the oceans recede.”

[1000 silverlings]

Ha! Evr wonder what’s going on in South Africa? How about Haiti? Wonder what the noble savages are up to. Go cover that rich kid

[1000 silverlings]

No news from Haiti in months

[BCR #226]

To Anderson Cooper...

Now you know how us gun owners have felt for the last 40 years. Deal with it. You propagated the BS that we have to deal with and now that it’s turned on you JUST LIKE WE WARNED YOU THAT IT WOULD... you’re upset. Too Fraking bad.

At least we can stand up and defy our march to slavery at the point of a gun even though, had you and your ilk had your way, we’d be totally defenseless now. But, you see, it doesn’t matter. You AND you ilk will not learn your lesson. You never have, you never will. THAT is why I have absolutely no sympathy for you.

It’s a reasonable restriction. You don’t NEED to get closer than 65 feet. You NEED Government permission to get any closer or you go to jail... kinda like the NFA and machine guns. But it’s a matter of want vs. need right? Doesn’t matter that you have the 1st Amendment to protect your right. Reasonable restrictions to protect society from itself are hunky dory... just like the crap you and other liberal leftest idiots have jammed down our throats for over 40 years.

So, get over your temper tantrum, get a clue, realize that what gun owners have said for the last 40 fraking years is true. Now they are starting to infringe on YOUR pet right you’re gonna go stomp a pink hanky in a tirade about how dare the Government say no to you? Yep. Shoe is on the other foot.

Frankly, you can take a long walk off a short pier to get inside that 65 foot reasonable restriction as far as I’m concerned. Your selective right BS just doesn’t cut it you hypocritical baby.

/rant

[1000 silverlings]

They’ll all be vaccinated too

[Augustinian monk]

I don’t know what Anderson Cooper is complaining about we/he hasn’t gotten within 65 feet of Obama’s real birth certificate yet....what did he expect, transparency

Man, thats golden

[nikos1121]

This is a free country. If a reporter and camera man wish to come ten inches from the subject they’re shooting regardless of the danger, so be it.

This is pure and simple gagging tof he media.

[Darkwolf377]

I hate to take an adverse position here, but I think folks are hyperventillating over a non-issue. With modern photographic equipment you cannot hide much at 65 ft. and for anyone who has spent time at sea, a 65ft. stand-off distance for paparazzi and pleasure gawkers is, I would regard in my professional judgment, a bare minimum acceptable standoff distance from working boats that are attempting to maneuver and work with loads.

It's really come to a sad place when we have to practically apologize for bringing rational thought to a discussion.

I think people are jsut thrilled that the libs are ticked off at Obama, as we were when they got in a hissy fit about his slowness to react to the spill. Well lo and behold, that didn't last, did it?

Cooper is doing the same thing, taking a non-issue and posing as a real reporter, who isn't biased.

Let's see this little perfumed wuss get on the air and say Kagan isn't fit for the court, and that Obama is bleeding this country dry, or that the border has to be guarded, right now, no excuses--and maybe I'll see his point.

Here he's whining because photographers will have to slap on another lens instead of getting in the way of the cleanup we all claim is so important. Something tells me he won't be so sulky for very long--like, until the next time Obama needs some fawning coverage.

But we're so hungry for the libs to turn on him--which they aren't, they're just having a little lovers' spat--that people are falling for it, again.

[Solitar]

And all resisting 0bama’s government will be implanted with compliance chips.

I’d like to think these thoughts are just baseless conspiracy nightmares.

Then again...

[Darkwolf377]

"ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: But we begin, as we do every night, "Keeping Them Honest".

I can't believe anyone is taking this fop seriously after that line of bull.

[huldah1776]

I saw at the supermarket that on the cover of the Globe has Obama’s presidency being illegal. Maybe now all the rest of his voters will hear about it. I wonder if they’ll care? They’ll probably laugh at the Democratic bureaucracy.

[HollyB]

Are you serious? Please tell me you forgot to use /s?

[HollyB]

Anyone know if news choppers or planes are prohibited as well?

[Jeff Head]

From:

http://www.jeffhead.com

“Barack Hussein Obama, hear us, loyal Americans whose bloodlines run deep in this land, back to the founding & beyond, who have watered the ground of this nation & foreign soils to maintain our liberty & constitution: Molon Labe-Sic Semper Tyranus-De Oppresso Liber. Your Marxism shall not stand in this land, so help us God!” - Jeff Head, July 3, 2010