Goracle: Stop censoring Gulf Coast coverage, but as for covering my speeches …

The Goracle is outraged over alleged “censorship” by BP of the Gulf Coast crisis and the company’s efforts to contain the oil spill:

These reports are deeply disturbing:

β€œWhen the operators of Southern Seaplane in Belle Chasse, La., called the local Coast Guard-Federal Aviation Administration command center for permission to fly over restricted airspace in Gulf of Mexico, they made what they thought was a simple and routine request.”

β€œA pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.”

This behavior is completely unacceptable. Access by reporters should be as unfettered as possible. This de facto form of censorship needs to stop.

Unfortunately, The Goracle always doesn’t practice what he preaches. From 2008:

When Al Gore agreed to talk at the end of the RSA 2008 conference, the 2007 Nobel Laureate stipulated in his contract with RSA that no members of the press would be allowed inside the keynote address. Many of my colleagues in the press were put out about this, and rightly so.

Fortunately, this year I was registered as a speaker at RSA 2008, so I didn’t have my usual press pass (although the nice guardians at the press room door certainly didn’t stop me from going inside).

Since individual attendees at RSA are allowed to blog and to take photographs at the conference, I feel I was within my rights to do so.

And from 2009:

In a highly ironic move, Al Gore has barred the press from even attending his speech at the upcoming CTIA Wireless 2009 conference, the nation’s largest gathering of the wireless communications industry.

The ban only applies to people with press badges. If you’re a corporate or personal blogger or Tweeter, apparently you can get in to the 4,000-seat auditorium where the speech will be held on April 3. The wireless industry group running the conference, CTIA washed their hands of the ban, saying that it’s part of Al Gore’s standard speaking contract and that there was nothing they could do about it.

“We don’t have plans to confiscate phones or police the audience,” CTIA vice president Rob Mesirow said.

They noted that when Bill Clinton, Gore’s former boss, spoke at CTIA two years ago, there was no such press ban.

“This is strictly because of the agreement we have with Al Gore’s office,” Mesirow said.

Al Gore. Hypocrite.

Imagine that.

Re: The rumors of The Goracle having an affair, which some are speculating led to the split between he and Tipper, I really have nothing to say about that – but I have to admit I did get a tiny chuckle from this picture (note: it’s not what you think it is!). :D

(Some links via Drudge)

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