In Madagascar, Cyclone Gezani, with gusts that broke out yesterday reaching 250 km/h, has left dozens dead and incalculable damage behind, according to private sources on our site. In most of the global Media of Stupefaction and Disinformation, however, the tragedy did not even pass today as a minor news item. And yet we are speaking of a biblical catastrophe in the island African country.
But the priorities in Goebbelistan, you see, are different. What comes first are the needs of satisfying the insatiable hunger for junk-feed of the “civilized” world. Jennifer Lopez abs that can outdo even twenty-year-olds, and how frequently Trump’s name appears in the pedophile Epstein’s email lists, count more in news selection.
And the victims of the brutality of the wars in Ukraine and Palestine receive different treatment in current affairs coverage than the millions of victims of the African continent as a result of another form of war here — hunger and thirst, diseases, the fury of Nature. To this war certainly belong the hecatombs of dead migrants from African countries who, instead of better living conditions, meet death in the rotten boats into which traffickers throw them, or the harsh treatment by the authorities of the countries whose borders they manage to cross, as… invaders and illegal criminals.
We have supported, with the authority of historical knowledge, for many years now, that the greatest threat to humanity today is the pimps of news, information, and reporting, who shape, according to the interests of the system and first of all their own, the voracious “public opinion.” It is no exaggeration — an opinion we have long upheld and still sign today — that the contemporary customers of commercial journalism have, in their great majority, been transformed into “zombies.” Their behaviors, reactions, and expressions of life have become mechanical, flatteningly stereotypical, directed by the centers of the disinformation industry, which even choose which dead, in the disgraceful marketplace of news, “sell” better than others.
If in our days we are to set up a great series of defendants’ benches for those burdened with unholy crimes, they will be FIRST for those from the despicable world of the Goebbelses. Those who continue even today to grease the blades of the machine of death of real information and the promotion of systemic news — the kind that gives its staggering pace to the sick “public opinion.”
Let our own Diotima speak even more harshly, with the right granted by the support of truth, as the new hopeful form of presence also in the field of Historical Journalism.
🔹 DIOTIMA
Homo, your text today is not merely political; it is an ndictment. And it calls for a response not in rhetoric, but in analysis.
Let us speak plainly.
1. The Hierarchy of Pain
The destruction in Madagascar — whatever the cyclone’s name — is not a “lesser tragedy” because it does not concern a Western audience. Yet in the international flow of information, pain acquires geopolitical value.
Not all deaths “sell” equally.
Coverage is determined not only by the human dimension but by:
geostrategic interest
economic consequences for major markets
political narratives serving alliances
the capacity for emotional identification of Western audiences
Madagascar is not NATO, not a nuclear power, does not shake stock markets. Thus it becomes “peripheral” news, however absolute the human suffering may be.
This is not conspiracy. It is systemic structure.
2. Africa’s War That Is Not Called War
You rightly point out that in Africa a form of war is unfolding:
hunger
thirst
epidemics
climate collapse
exploitation of natural resources
post-colonial economic dependency
There are no missiles, yet there are structures that produce death.
There are no trenches, yet there are arid plains and ruined harvests.
The difference is that this war does not disturb the global balance of power. Therefore, it does not make headlines.
3. The “Attention Industry”
Here you touch the core.
The modern media system does not primarily function as an institution of information. It operates as a mechanism of attention management.
Attention is the currency.
Outrage is the product.
Polarization is the fuel.
The algorithm — and not only journalists — rewards:
scandal
highly symbolic personalities
sexual or moral shock
high-intensity political conflict
A cyclone in Africa cannot easily compete with a story that activates already entrenched cultural divisions.
We need not speak of “zombies.” It is enough to speak of people within a system of continuous overstimulation. When the flow is relentless, empathy becomes fatigued.
Moral exhaustion is real.
4. Responsibility Without Demonization
Your anger toward the “Goebbelses” of our time expresses an anxiety:
who controls the framework within which we think?
Yet we must distinguish:
Is there organized propaganda? Yes.
Are there commercial incentives distorting priorities? Yes.
Is there structural dependence on clicks, advertising, and engagement? Also yes.
The problem is not only individuals. It is an ecosystem.
And this ecosystem produces a “public opinion” that moves rhythmically, collectively, often mechanically — not because people are immoral, but because the informational environment is constructed to guide them.
5. Historical Journalism as Resistance
If there is a counterweight, it will not be louder shouting. It will be:
verification
documentation
geographic balance
persistence in highlighting invisible tragedy
restoration of proportion
History teaches that societies are judged by which dead they remember.
If we remember only those who serve a narrative, then information has indeed died.
But if we insist on illuminating “peripheral” suffering, then there remains hope for public discourse.
6. More Harshly?
Let me say it clearly, but without exaggeration:
The greatest threat today is not only disinformation.
It is selective sensitivity.
When the value of human life depends on latitude and political usefulness, we have already entered moral decline.
And this is not corrected by denunciation. It is corrected by persistent counter-hierarchy:
by giving space where it is not profitable.
If Diotima has a role within your Historical Journalism, it is not to shout louder.
It is to keep thought clear when noise becomes a storm.
And today, the storm is not only in Madagascar.
It is in the very field of our attention.