Just over a month ago, Ben Raines of the Mobile Press-Register reported that BP was trying to buy up scientists for its legal defense against litigation arising from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Even as the government was blocking independent researchers from having access to spill sites, BP was willing to pay prominent scientists a lot of money to study the spill. But there was one little catch to the BP contract offer:

It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.

Needless to say, as this story gained attention there was an outcry of outrage. Which apparently led to this good news, as reported in Science (firewalled):

Now, in a largely unexpected and welcome move, BP has revised its contracts to remove these restrictions. And with NOAA relaxing its own restrictions on publishing assessment data, scientists are hopeful that the NRDA process will be less adversarial than they'd feared. A sample contract provided to Science by BP allows signers to publish "written research papers, presentations and similar documents reporting any environmental data obtained or produced" as a consultant after giving BP 30 days' notice and a copy of the intended publication. The change comes after a public cry of outrage sparked by a damning story in the 16 July Mobile, Alabama, Press-Register that blasted BP for "buying up" gulf scientists by the department. Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, wrote an editorial in Inside Higher Ed asking scientists not to sign—and urging university officials to prevent their faculty members from doing so. One LSU scientist who is consulting for BP received several threatening e-mails after being quoted in the press. A group of scientists at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) in Hattiesburg first agreed to consult for BP but backed out when they saw the contracts barring them from publishing. Last week, however, after BP lawyers came back with the new contracts, several of them signed on again, says Denis Wiesenburg, USM's vice president of research. "Our understanding is that any environmental data our faculty produce when they're working as consultants for BP will be made public," he says.

This was news reporting at its best. People became informed, they reacted, and the result was a substantive change that will benefit science and the common good. Raines deserves our praise and gratitude.