When the Gulf oil spill came to Grand Isle State Park, Louisiana ranger Leanne Sarco knew her job running a summer program for children would be cancelled. So she used Facebook to recruit and organize volunteers in a project to clean oiled hermit crabs.
"What are you in for?" a grizzled inmate might ask some future jailed journalist. "Building sand castles," the journalist might well reply. Police officers from the Fish & Wildlife Service and National Park Service are telling journalists they may not dig or build sand castles on public Gulf of Mexico beaches. The apparent problem: they might discover that layers of oil lie beneath beaches the feds and BP have declared clean.
Forget what they taught you in J-school; the feds say journalists are not supposed to dig. Don't believe us? Watch the video:
Reporter Dan Thomas of WEAR ABC 7 TV (Pensacola) ventured out to the Gulf Islands National Seashore September 18, 2010, toy beach shovel in hand. He quickly found layers of crude oil less than a foot below the surface -- giving the lie to BP and government claims that beaches had been cleaned.
He was quickly accosted, first by a US Fish & Wildlife agent, and then by a uniformed National Park Service police officer, and told that what he was doing was illegal. Illegal to report in a National Park without a press pass (Thomas had one). Illegal to dig in a National Park (this one was a tourist beach). Illegal to dig below 6 inches. Even illegal to build sand castles. And the officers left the impression that it might be illegal to ask why.
In fact, the feds have yet to document definitively that any of these things are illegal. They fit a larger pattern of BP and federal agents illegally restricting access to reporters trying to report on the impacts of the BP Gulf oil spill.
"Mark Ploen, the silver-haired deputy incident commander, wore a white vest. A 30-year veteran of oil spill wars, Ploen, a consultant, has helped clean up disasters around the world, from Alaska to the Niger Delta. He now found himself surrounded by men he'd worked with on the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska two decades earlier. 'It's like a high school reunion,' he quipped." Joel K. Bourne, Jr. reports for National Geographic with photograph by Joel Sartore September 16, 2010.
"Pensacola Beach, Florida -- The search for underwater oil in local waterways is over, and preliminary results show no recoverable oil was found, Coast Guard officials said Wednesday. But that doesn't mean there are no tar balls still washing up on the beaches of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. And it doesn't mean oil in tiny particles is not present.
"How much damage resulted from almost five million barrels of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico is still being toted up in laboratories and government offices."
A hurricane watch has been issued for the coasts of Texas and Mexico in the Gulf as Tropical Storm Hermine approaches. The hurricane watch issued Monday covers the area from Rio San Fernando, Mexico, northward to Baffin Bay in Texas. The AP had the story September 6, 2010.
"IN CORDOVA, ALASKA He'd just met her, but Evan Beedle wanted Rosina Philippe to know how his life changed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, how pieces of his identity slipped away, one label at a time. Husband. Father. Fisherman.
The recent rash of stories about (a) a 22-mile long underwater plume of dispersed oil, or (b) a newly discovered microbe that had eaten the plume entirely raises questions not only about the research but also about the way it has been covered. Can both be true simultaneously?
Three sources that may help put the stories in perspective are the Diane Rehm show, the MIT Science Journalism Tracker, and Science News.
Today's Diane Rehm show directly examines the apparent contradiction between the two studies -- a contradiction not directly addressed by much of the journalism in recent days. She interviews both principal investigators and discusses the issues with a diverse panel. The show is still on as the Glob posts, but can be streamed and downloaded from the Rehm site.
MIT's Boyce Rensberger at the Science Tracker reviews a wide range of the stories on both studies. He mentions a fact that few news media mentioned -- that the oil-eating-microbes-made-it-vanish study was funded by BP. And he asks whether funding sources shouldn't ALWAYS be part of a science story.
Still more perspective is added by Janet Raloff's Aug. 25 piece in Science News. Raloff reminds us that ships are still gathering data about this dynamic ocean process and cautions against a "rush to judgment." The story is evidence that critical thinking and actual subject knowledge still have important roles to play in news media coverage of science.
"A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico. In a new report released on Tuesday scientists say they discovered the microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf."
"Neither the White House nor critics of an Obama administration report is crying uncle in a dispute over a government report suggesting that three-fourths of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico is 'gone.' After being blasted by lawmakers, scientists and environmentalists in recent weeks, the administration is standing behind its claims that all but 26 percent of the oil is accounted for, despite widespread criticism that such a claim paints too rosy a picture of the situation in the Gulf." Katie Howell reports for Greenwire August 23, 2010.
