it's such a fantasy to be a commoner and then come out of this as a princess so is that why everyone is so obsessed with this real life fairy tale or are they will take a look at the media machine behind them that. and reality bites in the big apple this as the city charges big fines for so-called petty crimes so is government preying on the public to refill the event. and it online dating gone wild there's a new web site that could guarantee you a fun night on the town just as long as you're willing to pay for it.

it's friday april twenty ninth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for sound you're watching our t.v. you know there's something happening today something newsworthy and you can't remember what it is it's about to consult the mainstream media. this week a sony. issue that we need to go away join can really anderson cooper piers morgan and richard quest for. spirit when william's father and grandfather at the wedding they may well wear lobs handmade shoes costing close to five thousand dollars a pair. i can see thirty years and this is a piece of piece of wedding cake she gave to me on her wedding day there she is. to

tell you i'm more likely to break it cannot be overstated change does your way and does it become unpopular absolutely a bit like your u.s. dollar. values are there folks so so sorry if you were hoping to hear me talk about catherine middleton's dress or the royal wedding cake or the kiss on the balcony instead i want to talk about the madness behind the monarchy not the madness in the u.k. but right here turns out the british put royal family is everyone's family today and are detailing for discovered some of the most hardcore wedding enthusiasm right here in washington. is the morning the royal wedding and all through d.c. the hundreds and hundreds that includes the t.v.

. americans overthrew them as colonists two hundred thirty five years ago time heals and moves i don't think anyone here is actually still fighting the american revolution so today they were throwing their heart. and. its effects from all over london and the reason they had to get dressed up and put out a body into the british. seven right that was insane i had a lot of tea party references to my. my children said they would be seen in public with me but that's ok but while no one would admit it one of their own american royal family they're not our royals. but it's not happening here and we have to get up at three thirty this morning so what are we like why are we doing this but this is a good example i mean you'll always remember that picture of the princess riding in the carriage of two hundred fifty americans at the ritz to watch the royal wedding not because bikes are cousins or something across the water so how could you not

celebrate well more than five hundred tried to get in people showed up just to try to crush the crush the wedding. when british media stopped televising the royal wedding american media switched on and america's fascination as well wedding is a classic example of the chicken or the economic is us media coverage twice what it is in britain and driving us into war is us interest driving media however still people here say they can't get enough nobody does practical like the english you know this is something that we would never ever ever do here and for those here for whom money is no object they can recreate the royal wedding in washington just for a couple million dollars the lucky couple who chooses this package will get the ultimate royal wedding where we will actually take the entire hotel the hotel will be yours for a week and we will actually recreate westminster abbey for your ceremony we're going to recreate up in him palace for your dinner. and plenty of people are

cashing in on tea and will from whiskey to airsick bags to royal wedding jelly don't we felt awful doesn't smell right oh yeah they've been going i mean it by the end of the night we were having more i'm sure shelves packed with royal memorabilia were emptied within a few days for ling clark this was the second best day of her life the first one was diana she like many here to. day off from work to watch with her home shopping channel replica of kate's ring this was a gift from. william it was from his mother and he was to kate middleton as a token of his love oh it's such a fantasy to be a commoner and then come out of this as a princess and a royal and it's just special for many it was also a chance to relive princess diana through her son we've watched the boys grow up from. from babies and watched what they went through when they lost their mom

and we sort of took ownership of them then the hundreds of fans that we had outside of shops like this one for a chance to own a piece of the royal wedding are gone and whether america's obsession with the british monarchy will remain after the royal wedding well that's a tough call in florida are washington d.c. . all right so here's something interesting a new york times c.b.s. poll found that just six percent of americans have been following the royal wedding very closely and twenty two percent have been following somewhat closely and that may surprise you if you've been watching any television at all over the last month nielsen has been tracking coverage of the royal wedding in the last few months since really the engagement became public and take a look at comparing the u.s. the u.k. and australia turns out the u.s. of far surpasses both regions when it comes to the coverage by some estimates the

u.s. has twelve thousand journalists at the royal wedding i mean the entire african continent has maybe a few hundred western restaurant journalists georgetown university journalism professor chris chambers is here to talk about all of this chris you know if you're trying to figure out what moammar gadhafi has been up to lately or tornadoes or tornadoes he hasn't been really easy but you know if you want to know what shoes the duchess was wearing we're going to use by the way. what's going on here well it fits the pattern of modern media in the twenty first century of this carnival model carnival side show if it fits all those categories because now it does hearken back i mean believe it or not there is a pedigree here because william's grandmother is coronation one hundred fifty two was the first mass media t.v. event post-war so really you have this this is this this genetic procession to today now that's all blown away of course by social media b.c. had an app on and on and i pad for the stuff that you could buy it was ridiculous

but it really does fit this role of carnival side show of distraction of ratings builder i mean it's so it's really that it's really more killing but marketing distraction marketing a corner of all kind of an atmosphere and that's if you have the united states you know and here in the united states you know it makes sense that the u.s. would be at the very least intrigued by what's happening. but i'll cover the country where this is actually taking place you know as at a time crest frankly where we not only hear about people who are you know experiencing economic woes preying on media outlets who are constantly strapped for cash right well this is well you know i mean here's the thing they're not you can't trust the sub to play it all and will feel yeah i mean that's you know yes the pageantry yes there were closer ways and habits and over here we were blue baby blue tuxedoes and stilettos to weddings or star trek uniforms but i meet the what's

really going on here is this is an opportunity to point to mobilize and put in place saturation coverage generate ratings distract from other issues and other problems and even fox which is distracting with the birth of stuff even baksho of that stuff to concentrate on shepard smith was over there i mean you know come on and you know brian williams did get turned around as soon as he landed he got back on a plane to go cover the devastation from the tornado right now because life goes on but i mean when you look at the coverage versus the people answering poll questions i mean yes there is a disconnect there because there are a lot of people who are going through those poor questions or meet or maybe lying but there is you know the demographics here the marketing situation here is wonderful for these outlets because you have people who are traditionally like the people you saw in certain men who really are getting into this but then you have a younger demographic of women who possibly have grown up as a colleague at university of maryland with the disneyfication of being

a prince and i was totally going to say this can't be just you know obsession with the u.k. as a girl as a woman growing up in this country you know every movie i watched as a child had a princess and i would call it is there is and she is a real life princess so it makes sense as you said that is not the case well yeah but then there is also a hipster element here because this is the ultimate hipster couple these people are taking their you know me. massive expenditures on this wedding but they're taking their presence and donating it to green causes and climate change and feeding people and health care and doctors so that touches something in a whole new demographic as well so they can feel good about you know maybe sneaking a peek at this and you know say well you know listen this isn't charles you know this is a camilla parker bowles and then you have the diana element you have bows people who are seeing diana through her children and all that to distract from what's going on in america because we you know as newsweek said we need it do we need to

know what we're being told to need because this is a marvelous opportunity for media outlets to make up for lost time on horrible issues like you know tornadoes in the budget and what happened to all the wall street money i mean that's and gadhafi that's going on right now and as well you know i was just thinking figures that two billion people actually watched this writing at those are extraordinary numbers but i'm wondering from a financial standpoint if really i mean i think the six percent of the twenty percent who who sort of care about the writing in america i think those figures seem a little low to me but if that are the case why would u.s. media be spending so much money i mean we're right now in april we're not even halfway through the year and to spend such a huge amount of money on the coverage on printing these people up there on you know pangs of hunger for a try to get the best shot because there's nothing left to meet until we get to primary season in two thousand and late this year in two thousand and twelve

there's nothing nothing last question what about the three wars what about possibly being nothing from nothing from the from their point of view from the people that are really controlling things because these are marketing opportunities for certain demographics and even if you accept six percent we're talking about a lot of people who want churn some money and look at what the advertisers are putting out there whether it's the fluff coverage or the three. works or the quasar analytical stuff or the major cable networks you know broadcast versus cable you know they have their target demographic aiming at them so even if you believe the six percent figure there's still a lot of buying power certainly very interesting just your final thoughts i guess and what the lesson is especially you know as a professor what is the lesson from this experience which is almost over by the way well that the people do still the this kind of bubble gum and fantasy in their lives it serves a purpose but when everything else that's going on is go we want you can't sit

there and hide behind the mask of well we need it we need a little fairy tale we don't because we concentrate too much on fairy tales we definitely nor the bad problems whenever there is bubble gum and fantasy we need you the. same as from george. oh forget about those rumors about everything being bigger in texas lead up to the big apple the how the biggest well just about everything big banks big jumbo trons in the middle of times square and now big fines for what most would consider petty crimes r t correspondent live in our new york studio with more marina every city seems to be strapped for cash right now but it seems like new york is taking some harsh measures to try to refill those coffers that's right christine you know it's interesting to note that here in new york city when the financial crisis hit the end of zero eight it was

the banks down on wall street that were helped out given a band-aid bailed out by the u.s. taxpayers and they have bounced back wall street has bounced back but new york city is struggling and the government is struggling to bring in revenue and as we found out it is the people of this city that are working hard to earn a paycheck that are being hit hardest for that revenue. archery silk is something of a smoker's rights champion. living in a city where a pack of cigarettes cost thirteen bucks and the freedom to post where you please grows ever more limited. down in our basement this retired new york city police officer nurtures a garden of rebellion this garden is about reacting and defying their attempt to control my behavior hundreds of home grown tobacco leaves hang to dry before silk shreds and smokes are nicotine we're talking about products here so bacco is legal

if they don't want people to smoke they should go to congress and lobby to have it from allies the big apple's new smoking ban comes a bit close very soon it will be illegal to light up in new york city's parks beaches and pedestrian plazas like this one in times square violators caught blowing smoke can be slapped with a fifty dollars fine why they say if that's so dangerous why do so they probably make the law because they want to go morning america. just like we so so much the bad how come you can't smoke in public officials say the ban aims to limit harmful public exposure to secondhand smoke this is the latest avalanche of restrictions rules and prohibitions being aggressively enforced under a shrinking economy among them one hundred dollars fine for putting too much personal rubbish in public it's taking something from the garbage is also

a viable costing up to three hundred bucks this winter a new group rule was born drivers in bus lanes pays one hundred fifteen dollars fine this diverse melting pot ponies up ninety four different vehicle and parking violations arguably the bread and butter for big revenue in sevier the big apple growers. records by issuing ten thousand parking violations in just one day i take a blitz that generated a reported five hundred thousand dollars for new york city for the crackdown on working class americans followed weeks of snowstorms and which parking rules were suspended and the means of income for new york city was brought to a halt critics like gerald celente say policing the people is becoming a means for city and states to deal with budget deficits and economic hardship what are these cops still going is this why we have

a polish force to check on every minor infraction that we make they become goon squads they have to bring in revenue to keep their jobs. every day thousands of cash strapped new yorkers visit manhattan's finance office to pay the city for forgiveness is going to go to. the city and try to make money wherever they can get people to you know just to. get a bicycle in the city two hundred thirty tickets at two hundred seventy bucks each have reportedly been issued to cyclists in central park this year compare that with just eleven tickets issued in all of twenty time we just had just got on the sidewalk and some groups are yelling at. you know it's legal you can get arrested and we weren't even cycling we were just standing over our meanwhile our tree still may eventually be the last smoker left standing these are the remnants of last year's crop here in a liberal city filled with debt and

a rising tide finds. archie. all right so in some ways marina this is like a modern day prohibition as you mentioned but you know i got to mention when i think about new york city i mean this is the center of the world this is where wall street is located can't they just make out money in taxes and tax revenue why why are they doing this. well i mean that's a question that many new yorkers are asking themselves most recently on on tax day when we saw demonstrations taking place outside of the bank of america which paid no taxes and has gotten rebates from the government obviously the gap between the rich and poor is only widening and from this story what the feeling is among the population is that it is those that have less that are being hit hardest hit most often for money for revenue you see we saw record breaking bonuses handed out on

wall street last year i think the amount was one hundred forty four billion dollars and this is just of very complex and and perplex circumstance for every day new yorkers to face they don't understand why they're always the ones that are being squeezed for money whether it is to bail out the banks or whether it is to bail out the city i mean i thought it was interesting you mentioned a pretty rough time for you new yorkers just a few months ago during those snowstorms and you mentioned how the parking rules were suspended so they were bringing in money from you know issuing tickets but i also seem to recall that a lot of other things were suspended as well i remember that you know the trash wasn't being picked up and a lot of other services for weren't happening you know what's the answer in the future i mean you just see this escalating to more and more tickets being issued for you know jaywalking and and different things like that in the future. i think it all depends on how desperate the city gets and how much revenue it needs look there's always been laws in place against. not throwing too much trash in the in

the garbage bin in the trash bin but now women are women and men there was a senior citizen that got ticketed for more than one hundred dollars of putting too much rubbish in the in the garbage can on the street that law isn't been implemented but now we're seeing cyclists getting tickets for not yielding in central park were no cars are even allowed to drive these rules are being enforced harshly and let's not forget that new york city is not in the best of conditions right now you have thirty seven thousand people homeless living in homeless shelters every night unemployment here is eight point seven percent and you have one point eight million people in new york city living on food stamps obviously there are people millions of them that are struggling right now in these economic times and to be slapped with these fines is just makes the situation all that much more difficult and it seems we're going to when you've been talking to some of

these people just average new yorkers out there on the street they're not only outrages they're just a little bit surprised i'm wondering if you know about any other cities where this is happening it's the extent that it's happening where you are. i don't think that it's happening anywhere in any other city to the extent of of what is happening in new york and i mention that only because of the the new york the new york city smoking ban that will soon be implemented because that is something that has not been implemented anywhere else throughout the country in terms of not being allowed to smoke in public places such as parks but clauses this essentially allows fines to be written out day after day after day i mean this is the crossroads of the world you have so many people coming here from all over the country from all over the world foreigners that won't know the laws they won't know that they can't light up in times square and when they do they will be slapped with

a fifty dollar fine lot of money that the city can generate and then addition i think you mentioned this in your report a lot of times if they do light up when they finish their package they want to new one it's not thirteen dollars for a new one so certainly they're also believe all these little ways to bring the money and very important i.r.c. correspondent in our new york studio and from paying fines to paying for a lot of turns out these days that's an option or at least finding someone to go out with it's becoming more and more clear after all the traditional ways of courtship well they are over and an age when you can do just about anything over the internet we wanted to show you a new web site that you could say lovell's the playing fields and i'm not talking about you harmony or not stunt com this web site has been called by some online prostitution but for others it's simply a way of cutting to the chase or he's on a saucy it takes a look. remember the days when real life courtship was the ticket to romance if you

do websites like this really feed those memories fast what's your price dot com is a new dating service launched in las vegas where intelligence or a sense of humor apparently don't invite addict but a big fat does the numbers are split into categories generous and attractive but generous ones are for the money be attractive ones get the cash and the deal is sealed the idea came about from my own frustrations of online dating i would join a website like match dot com i would write all beautiful girls a thing or have high standards and i would get nor response brandon wade founder and see your website as well as a self labeled attractive member says a business transaction lures him a girl of your dreams and ensures she won't stand you up but critics ask is this prostitution this generous entrepreneur has provided us with an e-book a four hawkers i think the chances of this girl not actually being

a hooker are moving negative five thousand percent this girl is a professional and i don't mean a paralegal or gun repair expert the website mastermind disagrees how is this the same from prostitution it's completely different you're paying for the chance of falling in love you're not paying for sex on the first thing you're paying perhaps for the chance that you might save you attract and potentially have sex on the road as the furious movie you want to pay prices for that chance generally range from twenty to one hundred dollars to make finding the one easier personal profiles are billable i'm down to earth outgoing very funny i consider myself as being a nice conversation. as well as in a real photos leaving very little to the imagination it's true the girls are

scantily clad but there's a reason for that because men are attracted to the value of themselves and the value the time they're going to drawing as an attractive member and they're going to demand that if you're serious show me how serious you are so money's on me just becomes a component of showing how serious a person really years but the seriousness of a potential relationship is somewhat disputed by member nicknames double trouble venus in furs and steffi be among hundreds of others when i'm looking for a serious relationship i don't initially introduce myself by nicknames like kooky fed and come here i generally say hi my name is sarah it's nice to meet you some twenty thousand people have signed up to the website with two thousand deeds for cash already negotiated this leaves one wondering if this new is dating trend could become a symbol of american free market consumerism taken to the extreme as they feature r t new york evan i'm going question could this be the wave of the future and what

would the implications be as a simply a way to be more honest about the game of love or are we making prostitution more prevalent and works except that earlier i spoke to dr darcy smith a licensed clinical social worker she joined in with her insights from new york city. you know i'll be honest with you i really don't have a problem with it why not. you know i think. i don't i don't know that they're only interested in a new element here i think the new element is the oddest thing for me i think people been doing this forever. people have been going on there's an exchange for the time that people are investing in dates and so the choice typically has sort of the order of the day you go out somebody and one of the two people pick up the paper that the or the tab and that's the part of that that's the speed for starters there i think that's an interesting point i mean to an extent you are sort of

throwing political correctness out the window but on the other hand you know this class system on the website you know you have to write yourself with either generous or attractive but let's be honest here i mean most people think about high school most people rank themselves and those categories anyways right based on who they hang out with and how they see themselves that's right and if you want to date outside of your urine or full range then they're just sort of an exchange for that typically for walking down the street the two people who are both. well matched on the attraction meter you don't question if one of them has more money than the other but when you're when you're walking down the street in one incredibly hot earth whether or not the person mediately what comes to mind is not the person you've got to have money or she doesn't have money certainly here in in washington d.c. i think a lot of people would say you see a lot of that and you always wonder i wonder what the other person's job is or you know where they rank in terms of the political scale because this is

a town of that but what about those critics who say you know what this could do serious damage on the psyches of people who feel like you know maybe they dreamed that they were equals at one point and now they're realizing you know what in order to go out with somebody that i'm attracted to i've got to pay for it. you know i think it's i get a lot of reading about the site myself and i saw a lot of our allegations regarding whether or not this constitutes a prostitution or maybe not so legal prostitution the whole issue of prostitution in and of itself. is one that's exciting and one that we all want to talk about but i don't know that it's relevant to this particular argument the question at hand is whether or not somebody wants to date someone if they're outside of their attraction range or outside of their socio economics range is willing to just be honest about that in part that out there and i think that's what this does to be honest with you i know that that's probably not politically correct response but

we're in a generation where people are very busy we're all over achievers and we're all very very over scheduled. and this sort of takes the guesswork out of it doesn't it you know you go online you answer an enormous amount of bastions and you're very honest about what it is you're looking for and if you are somebody who considers themselves to be the attractive then then you're looking for somebody who's going to compensate you for what could potentially be a really boring date that was darcy smith a licensed clinical social worker in new york city and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa or check out our youtube page you got com slash r.t. america i'm christine present on. internal we're going with a little bit of work to bring just a short time ago what. i have every right to know what my government.