The BBC’s Censoring of News on the Gulf Oil Spill – Part 2

Last month, I wrote a post about how the BBC censored news of the US Government editing an independent report so that it showed scientists backing the offshore drilling ban. It turned out that the President who was supposed to be superior to George Bush in that He would now put science before ideology has in fact put ideology – in this case, Watermelon-style anti-oil ideology – above science. Yet the BBC has remained silent about it.

Now that the US Government is extending the offshore drilling ban, the BBC put up a news brief about it. The ban was supposedly going to be for six months, as a response to the big oil spill in the Gulf. When the President put the ban into place, we were told that this was vital so we could learn from the disaster. We were further told that we must wait until the Government experts learned more about the dangers of offshore drilling before any more could begin. Now it seems that the ban will remain in place until 2017. Why?

When the ban was postponed, the BBC’s news brief helpfully linked directly to the US Government’s own explanation of how the “revised strategy” will still help the US meet its energy requirements while placing further regulation and restrictions on the oil industry. Naturally, the BBC tells us that the oil companies are upset, as are the President’s Republican enemies. This is dog bites man stuff, unremarkable and unenlightening. All we get from this is the White House talking point that offshore drilling is still being considered by the Government, but nothing is going to happen without further restrictions put into place for everyone’s safety, and for the safety of the environment.

On top of this, BBC man in Washington, Paul Adams, has done a “From Our Own Correspondent” piece about how the oil spill disaster may have permanently damaged the oyster beds of Louisiana, destroying the livelihoods of poor fishermen still reeling from the devastation of Katrina. It’s all very depressing, with no hope in sight. Adams does mention that the damage seems to have been done when the coastal area was flooded with fresh water as a bulwark against the incoming oil. There is no blame placed on the strategy, only on BP for causing the spill. Whether or not the fresh water strategy was necessary, or if it was done wrong or at the wrong time is left unexamined. Oddly, the BBC has missed a chance to blame Republican Governor Bobby Jindal for it, as the New York Times did back in July.

I suppose some may think I’d be glad that the BBC chose to censor news which makes an opponent of the President look bad, as this provides a small step towards balancing out the fact that they censored all news of the President’s mishandling of the cleanup effort and collusion with BP to block media access to key areas.

But I’m not glad, because I don’t like it when the BBC censors things which get in the way of the story they’re trying to tell.

The reason why who is responsible for the fresh water damage gets in the way here is that it would distract from focusing on the hardship suffered by fishermen due to the oil spill. If we got bogged down in placing blame on someone other than nasty old Big Oil, we’d lose the Narrative. Not only that, but the Narrative would be further damaged by leaving the door open to wondering if the oysters would have been better off if Jindal hadn’t ordered the flooding, maybe the disaster wasn’t as bad as we were made to believe and maybe the ban on offshore drilling is unnecessary. We can’t have that, so Adams carefully makes sure our focus remains where it belongs.

But if the first setback was an act of God, the second was an act of industry – an industry that is much bigger and more commercially important to Louisiana than Nick’s delicious oysters, an industry that sits off this fragile, mysterious landscape of channels and marshes, and produces the stuff that Americans really cannot get enough off.

I like the Freudian typo there: “the stuff that Americans cannot get enough off”. Agenda slipping into view momentarily.

So we’ve established that the ban is necessary, look at the all the damage it does, we need to regroup and rethink and re-regulate if we’re going to allow any new developments. Thank Gaia for The Obamessiah, He’s going to do it properly and carefully, and only nasty Big Oil and Republicans object.

Here’s what the BBC doesn’t want you to know about the ban:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is well known for his anti-Big Oil leanings. It’s becoming increasingly clear that he and the President never meant to lift the ban at all, and were merely maneuvering into position for a more permanent ban. He promised that offshore drilling would end and that more would start up now that risks have been “significantly reduced”, but now – what a shock! – the ban will continue for seven years. All thanks to the President putting ideology before science. Wasn’t that supposed to be a big problem of George Bush? The masses don’t need to know about it. It’s no surprise that Salazar was favored by anti-oil activists even back in 2009.

But it’s worse than that. While Paul Adams is wringing his hands over a few oystermen in Louisiana, the BBC is censoring news that the drilling ban itself is actually beginning to cause economic damage.

Less than a year ago, struggling states and coastal towns saw crude exploration off the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard as economic salvation.

Yet the backlash from the BP oil spill — most recently the Obama administration’s decision this week not to open up some of that area to new drilling — has residents wondering if the industry will ever thrive again in U.S. waters.

Some fear an exodus of oil rigs in search of friendlier waters overseas. And with each passing day, folks that rely on deepwater drilling say the damage is multiplying, creating a ripple affect from blue-collar Main Street to beachside drives. They warn it will only get worse.

“Deepwater was the future,” said Lori Davis, owner of Rig-Chem, a Houma, La., business that sells chemicals to oil companies. If there’s less new exploratory drilling, everyone from industry suppliers to doctor’s offices who treat oil field workers will have less business.

Davis has already cut a consultant, reduced a profit-sharing plan for workers and left a recent job vacancy unfilled. “Today, we have to rethink that because we have an administration that’s clueless, with no interest in supporting oil and gas,” she said.

Sure, the Government previously stated that predicted job losses during the initial six month ban weren’t so bad (well, they would do), but that was when everyone thought it was only temporary. What about now that it’s more or less permanent? Well, oil prices are already up because of it, hitting a two-year high. That doesn’t help those struggling businessmen at all, nor does it help anyone else except nasty old Big Oil.

Unfortunately, the BBC doesn’t feel like examining any of this. All they care about is supporting the President’s ideology-based ban, and ignoring details which interfere with the Narrative.