Don’t blame the media for “balloon boy”

The giant hoax perpetrated on the world and the media by a greedy and stupid Colorado father is causing a firestorm of backlash against the media. It shouldn’t.

Colorado parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, are being charged with conspiracy, attempting to influence a public servant, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and false reporting to authorities, after reporting that their six-year-old may have been aboard a weather balloon.

The Heenes have been on reality television twice, on the show “Wife Swap.” That alone should have alerted authorities to the possibility of a hoax. But what are authories or the media to do when they believe a life is threatened in what is obviously an incredibly dramatic and photogenic situation? Junk news stories have long been a staple of the media and the public’s craving for a good story. We anxiously have followed tales of kids in a well, men in a mineshaft, stunt lovers in trees, on poles, climbing buildings, hanging from bridges.

They are hard to resist, and let’s face it, they are what the media call “water cooler stories.” People love to share the tales. Looking at social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, average people were passing along the story and were just as guilty of sending it on as were the mass media.

So why suddenly do critics wake up and wonder why the story was worth 14 minutes on “The Today Show” or countless reports on the 24-hour news channels? The media have never been more aware of what people are watching and listening to, and have never been more able to give the people what they want. And what they want as a lowest common denominator, are dramatic stories.

I wouldn’t criticize the media for bringing them to us. I would, however, criticize them for not bringing to light other stories.

For example: how is it that banks are suddenly allowed to raise credit card rates to 25 percent interest charges, when these same banks were given loans of our tax dollars for two percent or less? That’s a dramatic story in line with the Bernie Madoff scandal that should be covered far more than balloon boy. It’s got the same factors: incredible greed, stupidity, did I say greed?, corruption, immorality, what should be illegal usury rates, and peril for anyone in the middle class who has a line of credit.  Why hasn’t the media covered that one in full force? Why aren’t these officials facing loan shark charges?

Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan? Really? They sure aren’t getting the attention balloon boy got.

India and China are on the verge of having more English speakers and college grads than the U.S.? I can’t remember the last time I saw a story from either nation on our news.

President Obama visited New Orleans…just like his predecessor…and conditions there are no more improved than they were under the Republicans. Where was the angst over that?

The money we’ve spent on overseas wars would have paid for health care for everyone in America. Missed that story.

No, I don’t blame the media for covering balloon boy. I do blame them for not finding ways to make these other stories just as scintillating.

Then again, I’m getting more and more of my own news filtered by friends on Facebook and other Internet sites. I can barely stand to watch the 24-hour news stations, even in airports, where they are almost unavoidable.

The other day Ted Turner said that if he could manage CNN today he would focus on news in other countries, sort of like the BBC does, bringing a wider focus to the lives of Americans. I’m all for that. Turner, a pioneer, is on the right track there.

Unless the 24-hour news channels redefine news as something we can really use, not just as something titillating, I’m afraid the media as we know them will become utterly useless.

And, if any TV station hires these jerks for anything, someone better stick a pin in that balloon quick.