The Daily Glob

"Media Faces Barriers Covering Arkansas Oil Spill"

"The news media in Arkansas is finding it harder to cover the Mayflower oil spill."

"Reporters Say Exxon Is Impeding Spill Coverage in Arkansas"

"Reporters covering the oil spill from ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, are reporting that they've been blocked from the site and threatened with arrest."

"InsideClimate News Reporter Threatened With Arrest at Ark. Oil Spill Site"

"ExxonMobil said Lisa Song would be charged with criminal trespass if she didn’t leave the command center where federal authorities are working."

"She Recruited Facebook Friends To Save Gulf Coast's Hermit Crabs"

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.

Federal Cops to Gulf Journos: Don't Dig -- It's Illegal

"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.

-- "Building Sand Castles on Florida’s Beaches Is Illegal, Feds Tell
Oil-Hunting Reporter," Raw Story, September 19, 2010, by Stephen C.
Webster.

-- "BP's Press Harassment Continues," Mother Jones, September 21,
2010, by Jen Phillips.

-- Previous Stories: WatchDogs of June 30, 2010 ;  July 14, 2010 ;  July 14, 2010 ;   and August 25, 2010 .

"Is Another Deepwater Disaster Inevitable?"

"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.

"Oil Still Washing up on Panhandle Beaches"

"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.

"Gulf May Avoid Direst Predictions After Oil Spill"

"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."

Hurricane Watch Issued for Hermine in Gulf

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.

"Louisianans Affected by Gulf Oil Spill Seek Lessons in Alaska From Exxon Valdez"

"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.