Yesterday, all my various forms of communicating with the world all threatened to explode from the amount of outraged being transmitted through them from various friends and family members. I haven’t been spending a great deal of time online keeping up with the world lately, so I can’t say I am exactly in the loop on what’s been going on out there. If I were to take the Tweets, emails, and whatnot at face value, I would have had to assume that overnight on July 4th, the United States of America became a very efficient fascist state. Naturally, I rarely take anything anyone says at face value, so I sat at the computer and did the research entirely too many other people couldn’t or didn’t want to do … including the TV journalist that set off the whole outrage moment.

The first things I found on the subject I am about to discuss were yet more people (bloggers) running around in circles pulling out their hair and wailing. Then I ran across the propagation of the story to lesser news sources where there was yet even more hair pulling and wailing. All of it was from sources I wouldn’t trust, even if they told me my life depended on it. Therefore, I went to the source of the matter and ignored all the mouths frothing in outrage. I also engaged my brain, which many people seem to not care to do these days. Much more fun to run around in circles, pulling hair and wailing, I guess.

Before I get to the heart of the matter at hand, let me just state for the millionth time to always, ALWAYS look carefully at the source of your information, and never, NEVER take any news source’s word for anything as utter truth. We used to be able to trust journalists to not be biased or have motivations beyond providing facts, but those days are long past. It sucks that average human beings have to dig a little deeper than turning on the TV to get accurate news, but that’s the world we live in now. No one news source is ever 100% trustworthy. Not my local newspaper. Not the New York Times. Not any of the TV news channels (aside from my local News 8 which rocks).

Not even Anderson Cooper on CNN can be trusted to not say things without a basis in fact or to not take a fact and expand it into delusional territory. He often plays fast and loose with his facts (and lack thereof), and if he can create added drama and excitement by stretching the truth (to increase ratings) or asking ridiculous rhetorical questions, he most certainly will. He’s only slightly better at being a journalist than Geraldo Rivera. I haven’t decided yet if Cooper is evil or stupid, but I do know I don’t trust him to tell me anything other than election returns without verifying it elsewhere immediately after it leaves his lips.

Anderson Cooper was the source of yesterdays outbreak of outrage among almost every last one of my right-wing and left-wing friends, family members, and other associates yesterday with his pronouncement of a 65 foot (20 meter) area around boats and booms working on the oil cleanup in the Gulf into which journalists must ask permission before entering as being a suspension of First Amendment rights. Some people jumped on the outrage bandwagon immediately. Some people jumped on the outrage bandwagon only after the story had trickled down to the most ridiculously biased and nonfactual news sources available (the story having taken on all new epic proportions of craziness at that level). I got links to them all from everyone who failed to take a moment to either engage their brains or to check the source material from the actual source (the Coast Guard).

I will now ask some questions which I hope will assist people in putting on their thinking caps and behave rationally:

How close can journalists (or average citizens) get to a burning building with or without asking for permission? How close can they get to a chemical spill (on land)? A train wreck? A plane crash? A condemned building? A murder or suicide scene? Any situation involving teams of people cleaning up a mess of some sort? Ever noticed journalists (or average citizens) in all these situations aren’t just wandering around wherever they like asking everyone around them all manner of questions and are generally behind barricades or police tape or helicopters or sitting in an air conditioned rooms getting their information from an official person involved with the situation?

Now ask yourself, why would this be any different because the disaster and resulting clean up is happening on water and not dry land?

I do not have a problem with there being a 65 foot zone around the booms and boats working to clean the oil out of the water. I have no problem at all with journalists, bloggers, and other crazy people being told to keep a distance back without asking for permission to get closer, and it’s really a small distance … a few feet further than it is from home plate to the pitcher’s mound on a baseball diamond. I can take some great photos of anything at that distance, and my camera hardly compares to what one would hope a professional news organization has on hand. Also, the people on the boats are working, don’t work all day and night, and why not speak to them when they aren’t busy trying to clean up oil, a job I am certain is easier without a bunch of people not helping clean up the oil tooling around in boats getting in the way and causing other problems (such as propellers ripping booms and boom lines or getting oil on their boats and spreading it outside the area). Imagine you are at work trying to get something done and there are a hundred people following hot on your tail all day asking questions, taking photos, and generally getting in the way. Wouldn’t seem terribly helpful or useful, would it?

I haven’t noticed any lack of coverage or access for journalists since this “suspension of First Amendment rights” in the Gulf. In fact, later the very same day, Anderson Cooper was flying around with the Coast Guard and reporting from all the same locations he’s been reporting from since he got there, as has every journalist in the area. Obviously, someone asked for permission and received it. So ask yourself why Cooper set the outrage wagon in motion in the first place. Could it be that outrage attracts eyeballs, and eyeballs attract advertisers, and it all adds up to good ratings for Anderson Cooper? Yes, yes it could very well be that.^†

Now for some facts:

The Captains of the Port for Morgan City, La., New Orleans, La., and Mobile, Ala. , under the authority of the Ports and Waterways Safety Act, has established a 20- meter safety zone surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations and oil response efforts taking place in Southeast Louisiana.

Vessels must not come within 20 meters of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.

The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom.

In areas where vessels operators cannot avoid the 20-meter rule, they are required to be cautious of boom and boom operations by transiting at a safe speed and distance.

Permission to enter any safety zone must be granted by the Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans by calling 504-846-5923.
–source

While a handful of sporadic instances have occurred where members of the media were turned away from certain areas by private entities, local law enforcement or non-leadership personnel, the constant stream of images on television and the robust amount of information available is testament to the fact these instances are the exception, not the rule.”

“Last week Coast Guard Captains of the Port in the region put in place limited, small waterside safety zones around protective boom and those vessels actively responding to this spill. This was required due to recent instances of protective boom being vandalized or broken by non-response vessels getting too close. These 20-meter zones are only slightly longer than the distance from a baseball pitcher’s mound to home plate. This distance is insignificant when gathering images. In fact, these zones, which do not target the press, can and have been opened for reporters as required.?? It is unfortunate that the safety zones are needed at all, but the responsibility of officials is to wage the most effective and safest response possible while best supporting factual and open reporting. That will continue until BP caps its leaking well and the cleanup is complete.”^††
–source

Now if you are still feeling outraged and angst-filled and believe we are living in a fascist state, please go back to the beginning of this post and read it again –and again, if necessary. The First Amendment has not been suspended in the Gulf. The press has not been banned. The disaster and clean up out on the water is being treated exactly as a disaster and clean up would be treated on dry land. Get off this particular outrage bandwagon and find something factual to fuel your need for some outrage. There’s plenty of stuff to be outraged about without letting the talking heads, fake journalists, and frantic bloggers work you into a frothing mess over nothing.

1. † And if you believe any outlandish thing you read on a web site that says prostate cancer can be cured by consuming baking soda or rotten teeth can be regrown by eating eggshells and putting comfrey on the tooth, I’m afraid I can’t help you. You’re going to have to figure out that’s not a reliable source on your own, though I will warn that consuming too much baking soda can cause a number of serious health issues, and never EVER use comfrey internally, not even just in your mouth, if you like having a liver. And really … Congress got together and passed a new law to suspend the First Amendment not only on a Sunday night but on the 4th of July? The only time I have seen our Congress move that quickly on anything, it involved a woman in a vegetative state. [↩]
2. †† Oh look, they used my baseball measurement too! It was the first thing I could think of that most people in the USA could relate to easily enough –even non-sporty me has stood on a pitcher’s mound a few times. [↩]