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BP Blocks Photographing of Oil-Spill Damage

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Coast Guard, Local Officials Help Thwart Media

Crime Dip Said to Weaken Anti-Immigration Argument

Reporter Killed by Rocks From Guatemalan Volcano

Fox’s John Stossel Still Critical of Civil Rights Act

Private Newspapers to Publish Again in Zimbabwe

Gary Coleman Was Beloved, Especially by the Tabloids

Post-Katrina Stories Turn Up New Information

U.S. Partners With Black Scuba Divers to Tell Stories

Short Takes

President Obama checks for tar balls washed ashore at Port Fourchon Beach in Louisiana on Friday. Obama visited the Gulf Coast to assess efforts to counter the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (Credit: David Grunfeld/Times-Picayune) 

Coast Guard, Local Officials Help Thwart Media

"As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials Рworking with BP Рwho are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible," according to Matthew Philips, writing in Newsweek.

"More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers," Philips wrote on Wednesday. 

The issue of access by photographers is only one side of the multifaceted issue of media coverage of the closely watched disaster.

"Americans stayed focused on the unfolding oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week, while the effort to cap the underwater well and limit the damage was one of two stories that dominated media coverage," the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported in its latest News Interest Index survey, conducted May 20-23. The other story was politics.

Forty-seven percent of the 1,002 adults questioned said the oil spill was the story they were following "very closely," including 51 percent of the 105 black, non-Hispanic people in the sample, Michael Remez of the Pew Center told Journal-isms. Forty-six percent said it was the story they were following "most closely," the same percentage as blacks who are not Hispanis. The number of Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans in the survey was too small to project accurately, Remez said.

As a Gallup poll found that more than half those surveyed thought President Obama was handling the crisis response poorly, the White House held an on-the-record meeting Wednesday between incident commander Thad Allen and several influential political columnists, including Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Michael Calderone reported for Yahoo News.

The next day, Obama held a rare news conference to declare, "I take responsibility" for handling what is now considered the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. He acknowledged that his administration could have done a better job on several fronts, as Darlene Superville reported for the Associated Press.

On Friday, Obama went to Louisiana. He was greeted by a front-page editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune asking that the state immediately receive a 37.5 percent share of oil and gas royalties from new drilling in the Gulf, a measure not currently scheduled to take effect until 2017. "Twice in the past five years, Louisiana has been knocked to its knees by disasters rooted in the quest for oil," the editorial said.

Obama visited Port Fourchon Beach, down the coast from New Orleans, where absorbent booms and sandbags had been laid for miles to try to keep more oil from washing ashore.

"The cameras may leave. The media may get tired of the story. But we will not," he declared.

Some criticized the news media’s coverage of Obama’s handling of the crisis.

Ruben Navarrette, syndicated columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune, said Friday on National Public Radio’s "Tell Me More":

"I can’t tell you the number of people that I have heard in the media, a lot of it on CNN and elsewhere, making the point – straining to make the point – this is not like Katrina. This is not Obama’s Katrina. But in fact, I mean even though there’s no comparing the catastrophes in terms of the scale, when you look at it from the other side in terms of presidential leadership, I heard Carville just yesterday say that people in Louisiana feel like they’ve been abandoned, neglected and forgotten by their government," referring to James Carville, the Democratic strategist.

"Now, where have we heard that before? It was precisely in Katrina. And there’s a reason that 60 percent of Americans give Obama either poor or very poor markings – marks – for how he’s handled the spill."

On the other hand, Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review praised the Wall Street Journal’s Thursday story, "BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster."

"The Wall Street Journal unloads a huge, devastating investigation into the BP oil catastrophe this morning, finding that the company cut corners in several areas to get an over-budget, over-deadline project finished," Chittum wrote.

"The paper has been doing excellent work on this story but this one particularly shows the paper flexing its muscles."

Newsweek explained why BP would be eager to prevent photographers from recording the damage.

"The ability to document a disaster, particularly through images, is key to focusing the nation’s attention on it, and the resulting clean-up efforts.

"Within days of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, pictures of dead otters, fish, and birds, as well as oil-covered shorelines, ignited nationwide outrage and led to a backlash against Exxon. Consumers returned some 10,000 of Exxon’s 7 million credit cards. Forty days after the spill, protestors organized a national boycott of Exxon. So far, no national boycott of BP is in the works, despite growing frustration over the company’s inability to cap the leaking well. Obviously, pictures are emerging from this spill, but much of the images are coming from BP and government sources."

Crime Dip Said to Weaken Anti-Immigration Argument

"Here is an unexpected bit of good news: Crime continues to drop around the country. Though many criminal justice experts had expected crime to rise during a deep and wrenching recession, the opposite has happened, according to The Wall Street Journal," Cynthia Tucker noted Wednesday for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"As the story notes, the drop includes Arizona:

"In Phoenix, police spokesman Trent Crump said, ‘Despite all the hype, in every single reportable crime category, we‚Äôre significantly down.’ Mr. Crump said Phoenix‚Äôs most recent data for 2010 indicated still lower crime. For the first quarter of 2010, violent crime was down 17% overall in the city, while homicides were down 38% and robberies 27%, compared with the same period in 2009.

"Arizona’s major cities all registered declines. A perceived rise in crime is one reason often cited by proponents of a new law intended to crack down on illegal immigration. The number of kidnappings reported in Phoenix, which hit 368 in 2008, was also down, though police officials didn’t have exact figures.

"Over at the libertarian Cato Institute, writer [Daniel] Griswold reminds readers that he’s been saying that all along. Meanwhile, though, a group of police officials from around the country is worried about the plans some states have to emulate Arizona’s unjust — and perhaps unconstitutional — law. They say that brutal intimidation of immigrants will cause crime to rise. From the WaPo:

" ‘Arizona‚Äôs new crackdown on illegal immigration will increase crime in U.S. cities, not reduce it, by driving a wedge between police and immigrant communities, police chiefs from several of the state‚Äôs and the nation‚Äôs largest cities said Tuesday.’ "

Broadcasting in Spanish, Anibal Archila’s colleagues at Guatemala’s Canal 7 became emotional discussing their companero, killed covering a volcano. (Video)

Reporter Killed by Rocks From Guatemalan Volcano

A television reporter covering a volcano in Guatemala got too close to the eruption and was killed when he was hit by a shower of rocks, according to news reports.

"Anibal Archila, filming the eruption that closed the airport at Guatemala City, was reported missing and then confirmed dead Thursday night. Reuters reported. His is the only known death in the evacuation, his head crushed by falling rocks. Archila’s colleagues at Guatemala’s Canal 7 became emotional discussing their companero’s death," Michael Serer wrote Friday for the Guatemala Times.

"Guatemala’s Pacaya volcano started erupting lava and rocks on Thursday afternoon, blanketing the country’s capital with ash and forcing the closure of the international airport. President Alvaro Colom declared a ‘state of calamity,’ Juan Carlos Llorca wrote for the Associated Press.

"Here in Los Angeles, Fox 11’s Gigi Graciette followed the news out of Guatemala live on Ustream for much of the night and posted Twitter updates on the news about Archila," Kevin Roderick wrote for LAObserved.

Fox’s John Stossel Still Critical of Civil Rights Act

While Kentucky’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul has backtracked on suggestions that the 1964 Civil Rights Act should be repealed¬†because it applies to private businesses, Fox Business Network host John Stossel is maintaining his similar position.

"Eight out of ten provisions in the Civil Rights Act struck down those horrible Jim Crow laws. But the other two provisions are a mistake. They violate individuals’ freedom to decide with whom to associate," Stossel wrote Tuesday on his blog.

Later in the day, Stossel defended his position on Fox News’ "The O’Reilly Factor." Paul, like Stossel a libertarian, won the Republican primary last week with Tea Party support.

"Fox should fire John Stossel instead of continuing to give him a megaphone for his out-of-touch views. We at Media Matters for America are joining with Color of Change to send this message to Fox and News Corp.," the liberal media watchdog group said Thursday. Color of Change, co-founded by Van Jones and James Rucker, "exists to strengthen Black America’s political voice." News Corp. owns Fox.

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s "O’Reilly Factor" "included a discussion with Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill about beefing up security on the Mexican border. The conservative host began describing a hypothetical situation to make a point about the number of forces necessary to be effective at the border," EURWeb wrote, posting a video of the exchange.

" ‘Say you were a cocaine dealer. And you kinda look like one, a little bit,’ O‚ÄôReilly began.

"Caught off guard, Hill laughed and came back with, ‘Well you look like a cocaine user, so we‚Äôre even.’ "

Private Newspapers to Publish Again in Zimbabwe

"Free speech activists in Zimbabwe are celebrating a breakthrough for press freedom with the unity government’s decision to award licenses to four new daily newspapers," Phil Han reported Friday for CNN.

"The papers granted licenses include the previously banned ‘Daily News,’ which was shut down by Robert Mugabe’s government in 2002. The papers will be the first privately owned newspapers to go on sale in six years.

"The announcement is in stark contrast to the Mugabe government’s previous policy of allowing only government-controlled daily newspapers in the country."

Trevor Ncube, one of southern Africa’s most powerful publishers, told CNN, "The situation we’ve had up to now is that the radio belongs to the government, television belongs to the government, so it’s an environment where government opinions and views are on top of everything else."

Earlier in the year the Zimbabwe Media Commission was established to help carry out a series of reforms on the media in the country, CNN said, adding that the four new newspapers are expected to start publishing next month.

Gary Coleman Was Beloved, Especially by the Tabloids

"Actor Gary Coleman, the cherub-faced child star whose health problems, public antics and financial hardships later made him a mainstay of celebrity gossip news, died today. He was 42," Chana Garcia wrote Friday for theRoot.com.

The diminutive Coleman was endearing on television’s "Diff’rent Strokes" as one of two orphaned black brothers adopted by a wealthy white family. But it seemed impossible to write about his adult life without using the word "tabloid."

On the mediaite website, Jon Bershad called Coleman an "unfortunate tabloid punchline."

"Gossip columns couldn’t get enough of his story line, and Mr. Coleman was always good for an outrageous quote, such as revealing that he had never been intimate with a woman before marrying at age 40," Stephen Miller added in the Wall Street Journal.

"What became of his life was the stuff of tabloid stereotype, with the exception that substance abuse seemed not to play a role. Mr. Coleman seemed bedeviled by rage; more than once he was sentenced to anger-management classes."

The London Independent reported, "At the height [of his] success, his salary was $64,000 a week. But he lost almost all of his $18m fortune in a legal battle with his parents."

Coleman died after suffering a brain hemorrhage earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times said.

Post-Katrina Stories Turn Up New Information

"Henry Glover’s mother filed a detailed missing persons report about her son two and a half months after he disappeared, but an article in today’s New Orleans Times Picayune says police didn’t look into the matter for three years," Ryan Knutson wrote Tuesday for ProPublica. "Glover was shot walking into a shopping center in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina. His burnt remains were later discovered in the backseat of a car.

"ProPublica, in collaboration with The Nation, the Times-Picayune and PBS Frontline, has worked to discover what happened to Glover after the shooting. His friend and his brother flagged down a stranger, William Tanner, who drove the men to a nearby police compound in his Chevy Malibu. Instead of helping Glover, however, police beat and handcuffed his companions. Then, an officer confiscated the Chevy Malibu, with Glover still in the backseat, and drove away. Days later, the car was found burned, with Glover’s charred remains inside.

"The missing persons report was filed by Glover’s mother in November 2005, a few weeks before another report came in about a police officer firing his gun at a man on the same date and in the same shopping center as Glover was shot. Even then, the Times-Picayune reports, police failed to investigate or connect the two reports.

"Glover’s is one of eight cases being examined by federal investigators related to police conduct in the aftermath of the hurricane. One case, in which police allegedly killed two civilians [and] wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge, has resulted in charges against five former officers. Four have pleaded guilty."

The National Association of Black Scuba Divers plans to research black history underwater. (Credit: NOAA)

U.S. Partners With Black Scuba Divers to Tell Stories

In 1999, while a reporter at the Washington Post, Michael H. Cottman authored the book "The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie: An African-American’s Spiritual Journey to Uncover a Sunken Slave Ship’s Past." It chronicled Cottman’s reconstruction of the journey of a British slave ship. He and other members of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers had encountered the wreckage deep in the Gulf of Mexico, complete with slave shackles.

Now, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has begun an education initiative called "Voyage to Discovery," to "explore the maritime heritage of African Americans and engage communities in marine conservation."

Members of the black scuba divers group were to be taught maritime archaeology and learn basic underwater surveying, recording and mapping techniques during a training course in the Florida Keys.

"It all starts with journalism, telling compelling stories that most Americans will be hearing about for the very first time," Cottman, who now writes for BlackAmericaWeb.com, told Journal-isms. "And we’ll also be searching the ocean’s depths to find and tell stories about the African American contribution to the maritime industry spanning 200 years. This is an extraordinary project that combines writing, research, underwater exploration, African American history, and adventure on the high seas in a new innovative project to engage our nation’s African American and multi-cultural students ‚Äî and adults as well."

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