The gall of BP and their federal overseers in withholding the fact that the “top kill” effort was suspended for much of yesterday is almost too outrageous to be believed. Officials from both the oil giant and the government gave the impression Thursday morning that their efforts to plug the gushing well with heavy drilling mud were working—even though the company had stopped pumping mud around midnight on Wednesday. The obfuscation continued until late in the afternoon, when a technician told the New York Times that BP had suspended the operation the previous night because too much mud was leaking from the riser along with the oil.

This afternoon, it appears that the optimism, if not the substance, of what was conveyed may have been warranted. BP now says that it has suppressed the flow of oil in the Gulf by supplementing the mud with an injection of bulky items, termed the “junk shot,” and will maintain the pressure and attempt to cap the well with cement. But the failure yesterday to alert the public as the process unfolded is good evidence that BP is ignoring the first lesson in disaster management PR: transparency. It also serves as a troubling reminder that so much of what is happening with the spill, almost a mile underwater, is beyond the scrutiny of truly independent oversight. As late as Thursday afternoon, Coast Guard Admiral and National Incident Commander Thad Allen, who has seemed like a reliably straight shooting source of information thus far, said in his typically jargon-heavy language that BP was continuing to pump mud into the well and that hydrocarbons had stopped leaking into the Gulf. Neither of those claims was true at the time, if today’s media reports are accurate.

Update, 11:30 p.m.: Late Friday afternoon, The New York Times ran a story online that appeared on the front page of Saturday’s paper, which reported that BP was still not shooting straight with the media or the public. Again, BP and the Coast Guard did not acknowledge a twelve-hour interruption and issued ‘mission accomplished-esque’ comments that are misleading at best. Here’s the relevant quote from the Times story:

BP suspended pumping operations at 2:30 a.m. Friday after two junk shot attempts, said the technician, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the efforts. They resumed the procedure at about 3:45 local time, after the nearly 12-hour interruption.

The suspension of the effort was not announced, and appeared to again contradict statements by company and government officials that suggested the top kill procedure was progressing Friday.

The disturbing and intentional miscommunication should sharpen journalists’ skepticism about reports on things they can’t see with their own eyes. Unfortunately, in the case of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, that category contains much of what is actually going on. But beyond that, even what should be plain to see is being hidden. The misinformation about the stalled top kill follows reports about BP’s attempts to thwart photographers and camera crews on the ground or in the water from documenting the crude that’s washing ashore. The local cops are helping to run interference, and Newsweek’s Matthew Philips reports that BP has also sought to prevent overflights by journalists. This is unacceptable, and may be even illegal on its face, but Philips notes the broader significance: the pictures of stricken wildlife provide the most tangible and gut-wrenching evidence of the suffering this catastrophe has and will continue to cause:

The ability to document a disaster, particularly through images, is key to focusing the nation’s attention on it, and the resulting clean-up efforts. Within days of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, pictures of dead otters, fish, and birds, as well as oil-covered shorelines, ignited nationwide outrage and led to a backlash against Exxon. Consumers returned some 10,000 of Exxon’s 7 million credit cards. Forty days after the spill, protestors organized a national boycott of Exxon. So far, no national boycott of BP is in the works, despite growing frustration over the company’s inability to cap the leaking well. Obviously, pictures are emerging from this spill, but much of the images are coming from BP and government sources.

Brett Norman is a reporter for Politico.