Squirrels On Crack: The News Media In A Nutshell

[MostlyLurks]

I'm just getting around to reading the May 2006 issue of Fortean Times, and there's an article in it entitled "Squirrels On Crack" (bet you thought that was a metaphor, dincha?) by Ben Austwick. It's an interesting dissection of how the media "works". The article doesn't seem to be on-line at the ForteanTimes.com web site yet, so here are a couple of transcribed paragraphs:

"On Saturday, 8 October 2005, an outlandish story about crack-addicted squirrels terrorising Brixton, south London, appeared all over the British press. Reported in the Sun, the Daily Mirror, and even the repsectable broadsheet the Guardian, the story met with laughter and increduility. Nevertheless, it was presented as a news item, and the assumption was that there must have been at least an element of truth in it."

"The story had first been reported the previous day in the South London Press, a small-circulation local newspaper for the inner south London boroughs. It was based on one 'fact', an interview with a Brixton resident "who did not wish to be named":

"I was chatting with my neighbor who told me that crack users and dealers sometimes use my front garden to hide bits of their stash. An hour earlier, I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in flowerbeds. It looked like it knew what it was looking for. It was ill-looking and its eye looked bloodshot, but it kept desperately digging. It was almost as if it was trying to find hidden crack rocks".

The author goes on to describe a quick search he did, following the article's publication, of web-based bulletin boards. He found the following post, dated October 3, at a Brixton-based website:

"Yesterday I was chatting to one of my neighbors and he pointed out the reason I found his screwdriver in my front garden was that crack users / dealers sometimes hide bits of their stash in our garden. An hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds. Now I assume if the squirrel dug up a rock of crack and nibbled it, it wouldn't get any effect. But what if it did? And do I face the prospect of crack-addicted squirrels? Turf wars (flower bed wars) between dealers and squirrels? :confused:"

It's obvious that this is the genesis of what became a minor national story, taking up column space in major British newpapers. But it didn't end there. Austwick goes on to note that the South London Press asserted that crackhead rodentia were a well-known problem in D.C. and New York. And you know what? On October 18, Fox News picked up the story in the US.

How's that for "investigative journalism"?

Mostly

[MostlyLurks]

1. I Am Officially A DU Non-Person

If a post with the title "Squirrels On Crack" can't get even a single reply, I must be doing something wrong.

Mostly

[bemildred]

2. No self respecting squirrel wound have anything to do with crack.

But it's easy to get away with denigrating squirrels, they can't hire lawyers, and far safer than reporting on politicians; even though most politicians are far more corrupt, stupid, and incompetent than any squirrel, which is at least honestly what it is and not pretending all the time.