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News Media Gets Limited Access To Gulf

Journalists covering the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been yelled at, kicked off public beaches and islands and threatened with arrest in the nearly three weeks since the government promised improved media access. Despite government assurances to coverage, reporters face obstacles, harassment and intimidation by federal officials and local police, as well as BP employees and contractors, reports AP.

Among the limitations AP is protesting is a Federal Aviation Administration rule barring aircraft from flying low enough to observe and photograph coastal impact and cleanup. The limit is set at 3,000 feet for planes, and appears to have recently been lowered to 1,500 feet for helicopters. Before the restriction was imposed, aircraft carrying members of the media routinely flew between 500 and 1,000 feet without incident.

To some critics of the response effort by BP and the government, instances of news media being kept at bay are just another example of a broader problem of officials' filtering what images of the spill the public sees. Scientists, too, have complained about the trickle of information that has emerged from BP and government sources. Three weeks passed, for instance, from the time the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20 and the first images of oil gushing from an underwater pipe were released by BP, notes The New York Times.

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