From the Ground: BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence

[New Dawn]

A must read: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/11-9

[babylonsister]

1. I hadn't heard about them destroying evidence and can't find

any confirmation of that. I wouldn't be surprised though.

[cwydro]

17. Simply spraying the dispersant

is an attempt to destroy evidence. Surely you understand that?

[TheWraith]

2. CommonDreams is not a reliable source.

They frequently publish things that no one else seems to see or hear. Kind of like Mothman and Batboy.

[Catherina]

3. The article is written by Riki Ott

Marine toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor Riki Ott, PhD, shares stories of oil spill impact to cleanup workers in Sound Truth and Corporate Myths. Her latest book, Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez (Chelsea Green, 2008) is on social trauma of this disaster. She is a national spokesperson with Move To Amend, a grassroots coalition working to abolish the legal doctrine that allows corporations to claim constitutional rights and undermine legitimate democracy.

I'm stunned you'd attack Common Dreams since they mostly republish articles.

Is the message not to your liking?

[TheWraith]

4. An ad hominem attack doesn't bolster your position.

It's an article claiming information which is not supported by any other reports, anywhere. No other media outlets are reporting it, none of the thousands of reporters covering the Gulf situation have sources on it, nothing. Yet one fringe internet website, which has a long history of publishing things that are factually dubious, has better sources on the subject than the entire rest of the news media? To believe this, you have to implicitly believe that every other news publication on the planet is engaged in a conspiracy to ignore destruction of evidence, and to not report on the fact that they're not being allowed to see certain things.

[Catherina]

7. You're full of it. The same information was reported by the NYT, CBS

and many reporters. Anderson Cooper reports about it every night. The only attack here came from you.

[truedelphi]

9. I have heard this discussed on various talk shows

An oil expert 'somebody' Simmons was on both MSNBC and NBC last week saying this.

And the video entitled "BP flunks booming school" which is on google vids and YouTube has a woman expert, who goes by "anonymous" talking about how there are many people along the Gulf who are most aware that the stupid shot of the hole that is constantly shown as the source of the oil leak could not possibly account for the huge amounts of oil currently being observed.
In areas bordering the Gulf, apparently people are considering that there are indeed other leaking oil pipes.

And the fact that some event or policy is not discussed doesn't mean it doesn't exist or didn't happen. In fact, that says a lot more about our media being owned by The Big Corporations than about whether an event exists or not.

The Stolen Election of 2004 was mentioned only sporadically.
The fact that Bush and his cohorts took this nation to the edge of fascism and adopted policies that have destroyed this nation, especially now that some of these policies are still in operation under Obama, that doesn't seem to get mentioned either.

[Cetacea]

10. Right. Ok.

Anderson Cooper, CBS News reporters, Coustau Jr. and other credible people are a bunch of conspiracy theorists. Try following the news more closely before you insult hard working journalists and well-informed people here.
You might have enjoyed a CNN embed report that had the journalist reporting that the fish where he was were "having a good time".

How many more lies would you like to hear from BP and Co.?

[laughingliberal]

11. Seems they are grasping at straws as BP's attempts to conceal the horror are failing. nt

[New Dawn]

5. DLC hacks are afraid of the truth getting out.

[depakid]

8. I disagree- not only with the conclusion but with the bogus reasoning

Articles posted in alternative media are often only there because no one in the so called "mainstream" media is (or would be allowed to) work on the stories or publish them.

In any case- you just reamed re: the article, so that should be sufficient to put the lie to the claim.

[earth mom]

12. You are full of it. This story is on Huffington Post right now too.

You should be ashamed of your disinformation tactics. :puke:

Who do you work for, eh?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/from-the-ground-bp-censor_b_608724.html

[Catherina]

6. The comments are a must read also. Our nat'l nightmare has barely begun

Our national nightmare has barely begun


The wildlife is dying a slow, painful death

Crops in the region are being affected

Human Health is being affected

The economy and culture there are lost

It was announced this morning that desalinization plants for water in the Tampa Bay area will have to be shut down, so will the water for power and nuclear plants.

You've got 40-50 million Americans living in a Toxic Waste Zone

From the New York Times

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.’ ”

...

Last week, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, tried to bring a small group of journalists with him on a trip he was taking through the gulf on a Coast Guard vessel. Mr. Nelson’s office said the Coast Guard agreed to accommodate the reporters and camera operators. But at about 10 p.m. on the evening before the trip, someone from the Department of Homeland Security’s legislative affairs office called the senator’s office to tell them that no journalists would be allowed.

...

In a separate incident last week, a reporter and photographer from The Daily News of New York were told by a BP contractor they could not access a public beach on Grand Isle, La., one of the areas most heavily affected by the oil spill. The contractor summoned a local sheriff, who then told the reporter, Matthew Lysiak, that news media had to fill out paperwork and then be escorted by a BP official to get access to the beach.

...

CBS News reported last month that one of its news crews was threatened with arrest for trying to film a public beach where oil had washed ashore.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/us/10access.html

[earth mom]

13. Our national nightmare has barely begun....

Meanwhile all the powers that be in Washington DC, Corporate America and the Banksters on Wall Street are covering their asses while they also look for ways to come out of this making a mint and smelling like a rose.

[New Dawn]

14. Kick.

[amborin]

15. K&R

[New Dawn]

16. Also read: "The Spill, The Scandal and the President", by Tim Dickinson.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/12-1