GATOR-ADE

      Many strange things happen in the Prozac Nation, but lately Ameroboobs have become strangely paranoid of alligator attacks. A few weeks ago, a young boy was killed by an alligator outside Disneyworld in Florida. Since then, every other day or so the Media Cartels are running hysterical headlines about some valiant soul who narrowly escaped a gator's jaws of death.

       Within a day after the Florida tragedy, lawyers were already cashing in; filing lawsuits against Disney. In Postmodern America, the Smart Boys know that behind every tragedy is a golden opportunity.

       Most likely this recent outbreak of perceived crocodilian violence is due to two factors pervasive in our culture today: drug proliferation and attention-seeking. But there are some interesting contrasts between the incident in Florida and its aftermath and an incident in the Cincinnati Zoo just a week or so earlier.

        In Cincinnati, a 4-year old boy fell into a gorilla cage. Police shot the gorilla and rescued the boy. Ameroboobs were outraged. Instead of giving the police sharpshooter a medal; petitions were circulated on behalf of the deceased simian and the media was thirsting for the mother's blood (although an inquest found the incident to have been accidental).

        In Florida, police shot 15 endangered alligators in pursuit of a boy who was already dead. There were no public outcries, no media lynch-mobs hunting the parents. Instead, the Media Cartels are whipping on a flurry of anti-gator sentiment.

        Now some in the Black Community have noticed this disparity and have pointed out that the boy in Cincinnati is Black and the one in Florida is White. This disparity in news reporting has been an ongoing complaint among American Blacks. For example almost every kidnapping story centers on a young white female; although a number of black girls also go missing, they rarely receive any notice from the press.

         Black Leaders contend that this phenomenon is due to 'institutional racism' in the Media. We agree with them that the disparity exists; but not because of racism.

         Up until recent times, news reporting was a business of informing the public; today it is the business of selling stories. When we had laws like the Fairness Doctrine and the Anti-Propaganda Act; journalism was an actual profession with strictly-enforced codes of conduct. The media likewise was extremely diverse and competitive; today most media is owned by Wall Street conglomerates whose chief concern is turning a profit.

           In the quest for ratings and the bottom line, journalistic ethics gave way to the techniques of advertising and entertainment. Now, the shylocks on Madison Avenue have long known that audiences react to white actors more favorably than to other races. For example, why do ads always feature pretty white girls? There's no shortage of pretty black girls; but outside of media venues specifically targeting Blacks, we rarely ever see them.

            And that is the driving force behind the apparent racial disparity. It's simply a matter of cheap tabloid-journalism exploiting a marketing angle. Missing white girls and dead white kids sell. And that is all there is to it.

               This is one reason why we here rarely use mainstream American media outlets as sources, or link to them, and fully support international efforts to destroy Wall Street's monopoly on information. The 1st Amendment of our Constitution grants us Freedom of the Press. But a press controlled by organized crime is no more free than one controlled by the State. The key is to bring back competition and journalistic ethics. Unfortunately, we must often look abroad for that...