(06/10/2010)

 Some journalists trying to assess the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on wildlife and the environment have been turned away from public areas by BP PLC, cleanup contractors, local law enforcement officials and the Coast Guard, prompting concerns that officials are trying to filter the images that are ultimately seen by the public.

“I think they’ve been trying to limit access,” Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said. “It is a company that was not used to transparency. It was not used to having public scrutiny of what it did.”

The Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration denied an ordinary permit to Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc. after the company said a staffer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans would be shooting photographs from the plane. Reporters from the New York Daily News were told by a local sheriff in Grand Isle, La., that they needed to fill out paperwork and be accompanied by a BP employee if they wanted to visit an oil-soaked beach.

An FAA spokeswoman said flight restrictions are necessary to prevent civilian aircraft from interfering with those being used in the oil spill response. The agency has revised its policy to allow news media flights after case-by-case review.

“Our general approach throughout this response, which is controlled by the Unified Command and is the largest ever to an oil spill,” BP spokesman David Nicholas said, “has been to allow as much access as possible to media and other parties without compromising the work we are engaged on or the safety of those to whom we give access.”

Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor at the Associated Press, compared the situation to that of embedded journalists in Afghanistan.

“There is a continued effort to keep control over the access,” Oreskes said. “And even in places where the government is cooperating with us to provide access, it’s still a problem because it’s still access obtained through the government” (Jeremy Peters, New York Times, June 9). —

Special thanks to Richard Charter