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Monday, Jun 28, 2010 1:29 PM UTC

Salon Radio: Mac McClelland on BP’s blocking of media coverage

Mother Jones' on-the-scene Mac McClelland details the emergence of a creepy corporate police state in the Gulf

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Topics: Gulf Oil Spill, Washington, D.C.,


(updated below)

Mac McClelland is a Mother Jones reporter who has been providing some of the nation’s best on-the-scene coverage of the BP oil spill from the day the rig collapsed more than two months ago.  She has been particularly tenacious about chronicling the joint BP/government efforts to block media coverage of both the spill and the inadequate clean-up efforts.  Last week, she reported on a truly disturbing incident where a local police officer first warned an environmental activist not to film near a BP building (off of BP’s property) because BP did not want any filming; when the activist left in his car, the officer pulled him over — along with a BP security official in the squad car — and the BP security official proceeded to interrogate him for 20 minutes.  Her report on that incident, along with video, is here, and it really conveys a creepy corporate police state headed by BP that has emerged in the Gulf.

McClelland is my guest today on Salon Radio, and we discuss what she has seen over the last two months in the Gulf, the inadequacy of the clean-up efforts, and especially the joint BP/government effort to severely restrict media coverage.  The discussion, which is roughly 15 minutes long, can be heard by clicking PLAY on the player below or downloaded on MP3 here; a transcript will be published shortly.

[audio src='http://media.salon.com/2010/06/MacClelland3_normalized.mp3']

 

UPDATE:  The transcript is now posted here.

Glenn Greenwald

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