Progress in Oil Spill Court Case

While looking at the New York Times online today, I read an interesting article about the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  The article, Accord Reached Settling Lawsuit Over BP Oil Spill, focused on the court case surrounding the spill, and how almost two years later, BP and the plaintiff's committee have just now come up with an "agreement on the terms of a proposed class settlement." The agreement calls for replacing the $20 billion fund BP created to compensate victims of the spill, while also paying additional costs to natural resources.

Picture from U.S. Coast Guard

The article had a good feature lead, followed by a nut graf to state the story's relevance, and also remained fairly unbiased with regard to the issue. The nature of the agreement being over what it is -- a horrible environmental accident -- makes it hard to remain unbiased when writing a news article, but I think that it was done well here. The author quoted both parties, and finished by quoting the policy director of the Mississippi River Delta program and Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, both of whom simply want this issue to be put in the past, with money going to the right people in order to rehabilitate the gulf to its former glory.


Read the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/us/accord-reached-settling-lawsuit-over-bp-oil-spill.html?scp=2&sq=BP&st=cse