AP Goes Tabloid

The Associated Press is running a story headlined “Gulf oil spill becomes wildlife apocalypse”. Nothing sensationalist, nothing alarmist about that, huh?

Well, maybe something truly, umm…apocalyptic, happened since yesterday.

Nope:

After six weeks with one to four birds a day coming into Louisiana's rescue center for oiled birds at Fort Jackson, 53 arrived Thursday and another 13 Friday morning, with more on the way. Federal authorities say 792 dead birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other wildlife have been collected from the Gulf of Mexico and its coastline.

Yet scientists say the wildlife death toll remains relatively modest, well below the tens of thousand of birds, otters and other creatures killed after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The numbers have stayed comparatively low because the Deepwater Horizon rig was 50 miles off the coast and most of the oil has stayed in the open sea. The Valdez ran aground on a reef close to land, in a more enclosed setting.

Somehow, the AP let some actual information get into one of their stories. Still no context for the reported death toll, but at least something like context for the spill in general.

But they countered that brief spell of honest reporting with more hysterical “journalism” in the next paragraph (emphasis added):

Experts say the Gulf's marshes, beaches and coastal waters, which nurture a dazzling array of life, could be transformed into killing fields, though the die-off could take months or years and unfold largely out of sight. The damage could be even greater beneath the water's surface, where oil and dispersants could devastate zooplankton and tiny invertebrate communities at the base of the aquatic food chain.

And the earth could get hit by an asteroid before the nebulous evil oil has a chance to wipe out another fraction of a hundredth of a percent of Gulf wildlife. Or engineers could develop a fantastic mitigation technique that saves the birdies. Or nature could prove to be far more resilient than is convenient to the Big Media leftoid narrative.

The sun will evenutally burn out and go cold, too. There will be cataclysmic volcanic eruptions in the next few hundred years. There will be devastating earthquakes, too. (Anybody remember Haiti now that we have a few pelicans to shower our affection upon?)

These AP goons are making the National Enquirer and Weekly World News look like bastions of truth.