DOCs Prove-BP Forced Clean-Up Workers To Sign Contract Forbidding Them From Talking With Media

kpete

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Thu Jun-03-10 03:28 PM
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DOCs Prove-BP Forced Clean-Up Workers To Sign Contract Forbidding Them From Talking With Media

BP and the U.S. Coast Guard, however, have insisted that there are no restrictions on coverage:

***Neither BP nor the U.S. Coast Guard, who are responding to the spill, have any rules in place that would prohibit media access to impacted areas and we were disappointed to hear of this incident. In fact, media has been actively embedded and allowed to cover response efforts since this response began, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. Just today 16 members of the press observed clean-up operations on a vessel out of Venice, La. The only time anyone would be asked to move from an area would be if there were safety concerns, or they were interfering with response operations.

The Coast Guard might not have any prohibitions now, but BP sure tried. Powering a Nation, a student journalism initiative sponsored by the Carnegie and Knight Foundations, has obtained a contract BP made with local boat operators helping with the clean-up sign that explicitly barred them from talking to the media:

*****The contract included a clause prohibiting them and their deckhands from making �news releases, marketing presentation, or any other public statements� while working on the clean-up. It also included an additional section titled �Agreement Regarding Proprietary and Confidential Information,� which states that workers cannot disclose �Data� gathered while on the job, including �plans,� �reports,� �information� and �etc.�

Here are the relevant sections of the contract:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/03/bp-contract-media/

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zipplewrath

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Thu Jun-03-10 03:53 PM
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1. Pretty standard

I'm not allowed to speak to the media about my company without permission. Heck, technically I can't speak to the 4th grade science class without their permission. Of course, if I'm willing to just say what I do, and not who my employer is, I'm golden. (And I'm pretty sure they'd approve me talking to the 4th graders, but they'd never consent to me speaking to the press).

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