Have you seen the mess from the massive oil spill in Arkansas? Who even knew there was oil anywhere in the vicinity of Arkansas? From Mother Jones:
Reporters Say Exxon Is Impeding Spill Coverage in Arkansas
On Friday morning, Inside Climate News reported that an Exxon spokesperson told reporter Lisa Song that she could be “arrested for criminal trespass” when she went to the command center to try to find representatives from the EPA and the Department of Transportation. On Friday afternoon, I spoke to the news director from the local NPR affiliate who said he, too, had been threatened with arrest while trying to cover the spill.
This is my favorite part:
Michael Hibblen, who reports for the radio station KUAR, went to the spill site on Wednesday with state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. McDaniel was in the area to inspect the site and hold a news conference, and Hibblen and a small group of reporters were following him to report on the visit. Upon arrival, representatives from the county sheriff’s office, which is running security at the site, directed the reporters to a boundary point 10 feet away that they should not pass. The reporters agreed to comply. But the tone shifted abruptly, Hibblen told Mother Jones on Friday:
It was less than 90 seconds before suddenly the sheriff’s deputies started yelling that all the media people had to leave, that ExxonMobil had decided they don’t want you here, you have to leave. They even referred to it as “Exxon Media”…Some reporters were like, “Who made this decision? Who can we talk to?” The sheriff’s deputies started saying, “You have to leave. You have 10 seconds to leave or you will be arrested.”
Please note: Local sheriff’s deputies are running security for Exxon, barring journalists. Gotta be unconstitutional, no?
Mother Jones of course has its own history of biases and distortion. While I find the story quite plausible, I’d like to see some primary sources on this.
http://www.thv11.com/news/article/258973/2/Cameras-allowed-where-Mayflower-Exxon-oil-spill-occured “For the first time since the Mayflower oil spill officials allowed the media to see where the rupture occurred.”
And then there’s the InsideClimateNews that Mother Jones quoted: http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130405/insideclimate-news-reporter-threatened-arrest-ark-oil-spill-site
This was interesting: http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_3_8699.html It is my understanding that (1) creating a no-fly zone over a hazard is normal, but (2) there usually are “exceptions” with instructions on how to fly for news aircraft covering an event. Didn’t see any exceptions or instructions in there. Maybe there are some if a pilot contacts the local FSS.
Thanks. Trust no one, and all that…