Fairness in Reporting

Today, the Associated Press is distributing a story titled "BP says it might drill again in spill reservoir."

The online precis for this article reads as follows: "BP PLC said Friday it might someday drill again into the same lucrative undersea pocket of oil that spilled millions of gallons of crude, wrecked livelihoods and fouled beaches along the Gulf of Mexico."

You don't have to read very far to find out how the AP writer feels about this, do you? I wonder how many of those "wrecked livelihoods" would look a little better if President Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling were lifted. Is that really BP's fault? Community leaders all along the gulf coast have begged the President to reconsider. His refusal to do so suggests that it is actually an ideological issue for him, and that the BP oilspill was expedient for his purpose.

So, BP says that it "might someday drill again" in the same pocket of oil that has been gushing under the Gulf. This isn't exactly tantamount to Karl Dönitz saying, of his decision to follow Hitler, "I would do it again." AP seems determined to make it sound like a scandalous, atrocious, mean-spirited idea. But for a lot of wrecked lives along the Gulf Coast, this may actually be good news... though with Obama in office, the "might someday" bit must be heavily underscored....