Is BP Trying to Cover Up the Mess It's Made On Alabama Beaches?

Multiple reports are surfacing of BP and law-enforcement officials restricting access of the press to Alabama beaches.

One report involves Alabama conservationist John Wathen, who has shot perhaps the two most dramatic videos of the Gulf oil disaster and recently was featured on Countdown With Keith Olbermann. Reports Glynn Wilson, of the Locust Fork News-Journal:

John Wathen, an activist photographer and videographer, was harassed at the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge Tuesday, told by a BP contractor and an Alabama state trooper that he was not allowed on the beach with a camera where workers were moving oil with heavy machinery, and that “no media” was being allowed in the area.

Here is a video of Wathen's encounter with one Alabama state trooper:



It has become increasingly difficult, Wilson writes, for the press to cover the oil-spill story. BP and the Obama administration have made a pledge of transparency regarding coverage. But Wilson says the reality does not match the rhetoric:

If it wasn’t for the Louisiana bureau of the Associated Press, a hand-full of broadcast reporters, and other independent journalists and activists challenging the media access fight at every level, the public would know little of the horrible, permanent travesty at work in the Gulf of Mexico.

Wilson documents his experiences with BP contractors in the following video:



Why is BP so concerned about the press? Perhaps it's because the company does not want the public to see images like these: