At 1:30 in the morning on July 23, a double-hulled tanker collided with a barge being pushed by a tugboat in the Mississippi River. More than 9980 barrels of fuel oil emptied from the destroyed barge into the water. Yet there's been no national television coverage. No photos like this one:
have been reprinted on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Why?
When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound in 1989, as had happened with the Ixtoc I spill from a leaking Gulf well and happened with the Santa Barbara spill (out of which came the ban on drilling the GOP so desperately wants to rip aside now), the pictures of oil-soaked birds and the descriptions of the damage done to the shores and seabeds were inescapable.
Photo from wwwl-tv, NOLa. Taken from US Coast Guard patrol boat.
So why is the 10,000-barrel oil spill on the Mississippi river different? No M$M coverage of the devastation unleashed by more than 400,000 gallons of oil in the water supply for New Orleans; no film of black gunk on the shorelines, trapped wildlife dying in and around the water, no mention of water-use cutbacks. How come?
The tugboat towing the barge didn't have a licensed pilot at the controls. The double-hulled tanker that collided with the barge cut it in half.
The spill spread to more than 100 miles in length and is now affecting Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.
Yes, this is the oil spill that caused John McCain's campaign to reroute his "drill, drill, drill!" tour. But today's NYT story -- the first in a national news organ about this mess -- is headlined, "Mississippi Reopens ..." and carries only sanitized photos. What gives?
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"Eww, New Orleans."
The Media doesn't do New Orleans, anymore.
So, what did McCain eat in Ohio, Wednesday, for lunch, and what did Obama eat for breakfest in France, yesterday? Everyone wants to know.
Is there one decent MSM story about this anywhere?
I agree that the NYT story doesn't even begin to cover the travesty/tragedy, but I've yet to convince some folks in my family that blogs have valid reporting.
I don't recall
...them saying much about the last spill in CA either. It could be that this is like the slurry spill in KY. That was a major disaster -- one of the biggest (if not the biggest) US environmental disasters of the last 20 years but it got little coverage.
Here's the KY Slurry disaster compared to the Exxon Valdez:
Background.
Now it might just be that the Energy Companies have come to realize, "hey we own most of the news channels!"
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Martin Country post real reporting
Thanks for the link. I like the last line:
Power in both senses...
But there doesn't seem to be a site, just the report. Who is the writer? Where are they posting now? Or why aren't they posting now?
And I wonder how many other stories like this are out there?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
You're welcome
I'm not sure who the author is -- it's still relatively difficult to get well written info online on what happened there that's not in the form of bland EPA reports. The coal industry is incredibly good at covering up anything that has to do with coal related environmental disasters. If it doesn't have actual miners involved (usually a cave in) the media rarely reports more than a blip. And unfortunately, the impact of coal just isn't on the radar of environmental activists the way other topics are (beyond mountaintop removal and simple objections to coal in general -- people don't know a lot about slurry or all the other hazards that go along with coal mining). I think that's because coal comes largely from Appalachia and a few rural areas in western states. Even today we're still isolated from the rest of the country.
As to other stories... there are all kinds. For example, did you know a town in Pennsylvania called Centralia has been on fire since 1962? It's still on fire today in 2008 from an underground mine fire.
Here's the wiki and here are some first hand accounts on what it looks like today.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Good work, Sarah
Where is the "liberal" MSM? What if we gave away a Free Press and nobody cared?
++++
Because the press are in the bag for Obama?
Or...wait...now I'm confused....
No, No, in the Bag and carrying his bags
...overseas. Obama World Tour 08 aka Obanafest! had 700 aides and most of the anchors from each network. McMain even made jv corp passes for his guys. So yeah they're in the bag overseas blowing the budget for some poor stringers trying to get to Mississippi.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Are they little black bags?
with an AT&T logo on them?
Drilling and spills
Yes, this is the oil spill that caused John McCain’s campaign to reroute his “drill, drill, drill!” tour.
Nowadays, most major spills have nothing to do with drilling. For instance, 115 offshore oil rigs were destroyed during Katrina...but none resulted in signficant spillage. It is storgage, refineries, and especially the transport of crude that causes the most damage.
As to the question of the Kentucky spill -- it wasn't an oil spill. More importantly in terms of coverage, perhaps, is the idea of the "pristine" environment being destroyed (a la Alaska) and simply adding to the damage of an already compromised ecosystem.
Another great NOLA site
Is First Draft. I commend that post to your attention, because public housing seems to be a prime target for looters in our political class; I'm talking generically, for the past thirty year, not Rezko, I hasten to add. See HUS is a sewer.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Disaster capitalism and shock doctrine
We need a department or category for those, because I'm afraid we ain't seen the last of this kind of stuff.
Sarah, thank you for doing this post - This oil spill has just
been a story about barge and boat traffic on the Mississippi, not really about the damage and the carelessness of our energy transportation.
What if?
What if news organizations completely split up their political coverage from everything else? Yeah, yeah, that's really hard to do, but these days we have a two year election cycle for president and a year long cycle for midterms. Essentially, we're only getting a year of non horse-race coverage. It's like we have forgotten what reporting is.
Is "the bottom line" the reason for worse and worse journalism or is it the near continuous election cycle? Anyone have links for such a discussion?