Fast food violence

Sensationalistic journalism is a plague; a sickness that feeds off of itself. Vira l in nature, it has spread from one host to the next, infesting both the media and those it serves.

Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers," released last week has been justifiably billed as "A hallucinatory satire on America's culture of violence an d the tabloid media's encouragement of that culture for its own benefit."

The movie raises questions that have been bantered around with increasing frequency these days. What is news and what is entertainment. Is the line between them blurring into nonexistence? T.V. news shows have to compete for viewers by providing news that shocks and somehow attracts or confront extinction in the face of those shows that drive a common denominator of sensationalism.

"Natural Born Killers" is a parable f or that problem facing journalism today. A warning of what may come if ratings continue to rule the media. According to the "Natural Born Killers" press package, between February 17 and May 27 of this year alone, "reality based" tabloid and network ne ws shows broadcast 45 stories that graphically focused on murders, spree killers and their victims.

This kind of tabloid-media attention has also had a debatable after-effect: we are now charged with producing more violence and destruction by repor ting it. The L.A. riots of two years ago, for example, were blamed on the media.

But the media alone cannot be to blame for this malaise. The people themselves hold a degree of guilt. Millions of Americans watched the televised police manhunt for O .J. Simpson. Were you someone who followed the trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez?

Robert Downey, Jr. accurately and comically portrays a ratings ravenous media ghoul in the movie, and visions of vintage stock film footage parodies the audience at hom e throughout. The story, it seems, centers more on how we view violence, rather than the violence itself.

So what is the answer? Certainly not censorship, the bane of journalism. All we can hope for is epiphany, that moment of self- realization; an antidote to the epidemic of blood lust and the fascination it holds for the American culture. How many stories about disgruntled postal workers and fast-food restaurant massacres will it take before we wake up sweating and trembling from the nightmar e? It may get worse before it gets better.

But perhaps our romance with violence will only be fleeting. The attention-span of our citizenry is notoriously fickle. What rivets us to our La-Z-Boys today may soon be forgotten tomorrow.