Why is the oil slick sanitized and/or scrubbed from the media?

[Union Yes]

42,000 gallons of toxic sludge are pooring into the Gulf Of Mexico every day.

Nothing to see here as the Gulf dies.

[skeptical cynic]

1. Because the mood of the nation is...

"Drill, baby, drill!"

[TreasonousBastard]

2. It's not. I hear about it every day.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

3. In what respect has it been "scrubbed" from the media?

A quick check on Google News indicates that there are some 8,500+ stories (admittedly, many of these are undoubtedly replications, as it were, of wire service stories in various venues) on this subject.

The story can be found on MSNBC.com, CNN.com, the New York Times online.

Yes, other stories may be getting more coverage now, but that is simply the nature of the press today. As far as "news" goes, the Gulf rig explosion/blow-out isn't a new story, and so will naturally take a "back seat" to (1) more recent events and (2) stories for which there are more "interesting" photographs and/or video (such as that landslide that buried a highway in Taiwan).

I don't see where there's more to it than that.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Yours maybe but not here in the UK

Robot vessels used to cap Gulf of Mexico oil leak :

Robotic submersibles are being used to try to stop a fast-flowing oil leak nearly a mile (1.5km) below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some 1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons) of oil a day are spewing from a damaged well, after a drilling rig exploded and sank off the Louisiana coast last week.

British oil company BP, which leased the rig, said the "first-of-its-kind" attempt would take 24 to 36 hours.

>

Conservation experts say the oil leak has the potential to damage beaches, barrier islands and wetlands across the coastline.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8643782.stm

[piratefish08]

5. drill baby drill!! remember the election chant we despised here so much?

yeah. we love that shit now.........

just depends on who is leading the cheer i guess........

[flyarm]

13. you got that right..but let the dems around the country ignore it..at their peril......

it is being talked about everywhere here in Fla..with the utmost anger and fury!

In the grocery lines..at the beach and pools...at the car wash..you name it...and I have gotten at least 1000 emails from very very pissed off dems here in Fla!

Anger like I have never seen among dems in Fla!

Obama not only lied to Floridians..in his campaigns here..but he lied about one of the most sensitive subjects here..our Oceans! Our lifeblood! Our livelyhoods!

First he broke that campaign promise ..then he lied to NASA and is killing 9,000 jobs and many many businesses that survived with NASA..

This state will forever go Red now..count on that!

I know many dems that have now cut up their dem registration cards and are re-registering Indy..they have had it!

I will be one as well!

And many have said they will sit out Nov!

I will be one of those as well..

This flies in the face of Laws Dems fought hard to put in place to keep the drill rigs out of our waterways.

This is a slap in all our faces..

Furthermore..Obama and his spokepeople have said this accident has no barring on his decision to allow drilling in Millions of miles of our US coastlines!

This is a disgrace!

This is the destruction of our eco-systems for the greed of oil corps!

[SidDithers]

6. It is?...

It's small, but it's still on the front page of today's New York Times.

Sid

[robdogbucky]

7. It was the lead story on the 10 o'clock news last night

here in the Bay Area on Channel 2. They devoted about the first 6 minutes to it, with monitoring professionals here interviewed on its scope. It apparently went from 14 sq.miles to first 400 sq. miles in one day, now projecting to be as much as 700 sq. miles soon. It was posed that the scope was not immediately known due to sea conditions and human life rescue efforts.

From 14 to 700 sq. miles in that short of a time? That sucker is gushing somewhere down under.

I read where this is bigger than the Exxon Valdez.

Was surprised to see it was not a prominent item on DU last night before I turned in, after seeing the alarm conveyed by Channel 2's report.



Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[SidDithers]

9. It will have to gush at it's current rate for more than 8 months...

to be as big as the Exxon Valdez.

I say that not to minimize this oil spill, but to put in perspective just how huge Valdez was (and Valdez isn't even in the top 10 of worlds biggest oil spills)

Sid

[bamacrat]

8. It's being reported on but not a lot. But of course it wouldn't that would give evidence for the

anti drill environmentalist crowd and big oil and the corporations that run the media can't have that. Seeing as how we have the largest deposits of natural gas in the world, why don't we try and convert a majority of atleast our government vehicles to run on that. It would greatly deminish our need for foreign oil. I know electric and hybrids are the future but why not natural gas hybrids. We need to get off oil and we have enough natural gas to do so.

[JCMach1]

10. Wait until it hits land... not a lot of info. coming out right now

that hasn't already been reported... plus weekend news dump...

[TheKentuckian]

11. Scrubbed doesn't seem accurate but put on the backburner and sanitized

might not be too far off from the truth.

Taking this head on goes against a lot of powerful folks short term interests and that means their lackeys toe the line. Generally, when there are accidents they go straight to the memory hole with a brief stop in the interior of a paper or a blurb on the web. I figure that if the workers weren't lost that this wouldn't hardly get the light of day.

[flyarm]

12. because Team Obama is making sure it is! But let me assure you

it is on our Fla news..and this will assure Obama never wins Fla again!

Democrats here are pissed beyond words.........Obama has done what no republican could..not Reagan..not GHBUSH, not GW BUSH..Not Jeb..

Obama has now opened up our water to these rigs 2/3rds the way down both coasts of Florida..down past Sarasota on the west coast and Gulf of Mexico..

In Fact Obama has opened up for oil drilling rigs millions of miles of our US coastlines!

What the base of the democratic party has fought against for decades!..Decades!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Change my ass! A real fucking to the eco-system and economy's of many coastline states ..that is what it really is..a total fucking of everything democrats used to stand for..and against!

Understand this ..the Gulf of Mexico does not get big waves..it is relatively flat..the oil will not be broken up by waves..it will settle to the bottom and will kill sea life for hundreds if not thousands of years!

[progressoid]

14. Literally a drop in the ocean.

Liquid petroleum (crude oil and its refined products such as tar, lubricating oil, gasoline, and kerosene) can be released as catastrophic spills from point sources (e.g., from tankers and blowouts) or as chronic discharges typically from nonpoint sources (e.g., from urban runoff or fallout from the atmosphere). Releases of petroleum into the environment occur naturally from seeps as well as from human sources. Together natural and human sources contribute about 380 million gallons of petroleum to the oceans each year. Of this, about 45 percent comes from natural seeps, and the remainder may be attributed to the human activities of petroleum production, transportation, and consumption. Discharges during petroleum production tend to be restricted to areas of exploration and extraction and are mostly due to the release of "produced waters" (water extracted with petroleum from the reservoir); these discharges contribute about 5 percent of the petroleum reaching the sea from human sources. Spills during the transport, refinement, and distribution of petroleum are most common along shipping routes and pipelines and make up about 22 percent of human-caused petroleum inputs. Spills during petroleum consumption (i.e., use of automobiles, boats, etc.) tend to be small but are so numerous and widespread that they contribute the vast majority (about 70 percent) of human-caused petroleum pollution in the sea. Therefore, consumers could make an enormous contribution to pollution prevention through proper use of petroleum products in vehicles and other personal equipment maintained to avoid leaks and spills.

http://www.pollutionissues.com/Co-Ea/Disasters-Oil-Spills.html#ixzz0mEI1Fkbj

[tekisui]

15. Obama and repukes want more offshore drilling.

[Brother Buzz]

16. I was informed the spill was 'sweet crude' that dissipated easily

and that it would have been horrific mess if it was a spill of heavy crude like the crap we import. Dissipated? They made it sound like the crap was magically disappearing rather than spreading in every direction by the winds and currents.

Until the oil strikes the US coast, the story will be relegated to page three.

[flyarm]

18. the Gulf of Mexico does not have big waves..there is nothing to dissipate the oil

it will sink and lay on the bottom of the Gulf for thousands of years to come and kill sea life and our eco-system.

it has been studied for years by Dems and ecologists in Fla forever!

Look up the research instead of believing the shit that is being dished out! Because the shit that is being dished out does not have this nations best interests at heart.

[sabbat hunter]

20. they use

dispersants that help break up the oil slick.

[Brother Buzz]

22. No wind or currents in the Gulf of mexico?

Wind and currents move the oil, not waves.

[flyarm]

26. sure but shitloads settle on the bottom! go look it up..many studies of it here in Fla! eom

[Brother Buzz]

27. All I find are studies of west coast oil globules lighting on the So Cal beaches

Oil that has seeping naturally for millions of years.

What chemical or physical changes happen to the oil to allows it to sink, and how long does it take?

[sufrommich]

17. It was the lead on every local channel this morning. I think

it's being pretty widely reported.

[sabbat hunter]

19. actually it isnt

On MSNBC.com there is an article right on the front page

even foxnews.com has an article on their US news page, detailing the size of the spill, along with pictures.



So I would say that if even Fox is reporting on it, the issue is not being scrubbed from the media.

[spanone]

21. for the time being...out of sight, out of mind

wait till folks go to the redneck riviera this summer and have to use turpentine to clean the oil off their bodies

[Gold Metal Flake]

23. Because of the liberal media bias.

[Xenotime]

24. Big oil has paid them off.

[BeFree]

25. Could be worse

Could be 42,000 gallons of nuke waste flowing.

All of us need to cut back on using oil. And nuke power. Will we?

[Dragonfli]

30. The current leadership disagrees - sees oil spills and nuclear waste as candy and Kool-aid

All good and all American and too sweet not to pursue MORE - rather than less...

Sorry..

[SoCalDem]

28. Advertising & corporate ownership deals

easy-peasy..

TV guys don't want to lose their revenue stream.

[Odin2005]

29. because the MSM doesn't give news, it gives propaganda.

Can't get in the way of "DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!!".

[spanone]

31. i'm seeing it all over the news now...you can't hide an 1800 square mile oil slick