The Miseducation of American Media Revealed by...Balloon Boy!

“In the 2+ hours tht #balloonboy was breaking news, 7 teens were victims of homicide & we’ll prolly never kno their story http://is.gd/4lnpx (based on 2005 stats – want my calculations? then comment to me!)


This is what I posted earlier on Twitter, upon hearing the development and focus on the adventures of six-year old Falcon today, which turned out to not be an adventure, but a quiet few hours spent in hiding in an attic.  

Let me go on record and say I was concerned about the boy.  And I could understand how the potential peril that Falcon could have been in would be of concern to parents and family.  It would have been tragic had they not found him, or found him in a tragic state, such as news outlets speculating that the basket holding the boy may have dropped from the balloon.  BUT, quite frankly, this news was not breaking news.

Which leads to my comment above.  As I caught this news story in development at about the 2 hour mark, I just couldn’t believe this story warranted NATIONAL, BREAKING news. 

There is so much that goes on in the world, that will never get more than a passing headline at the bottom of the screen, or an honorable mention 13 links deep into a major news website.  This morning, there was an article saying that world hunger was at 1 billion even though governments had committed to reducing this number by 2015.  Or like my statistic above, teens are dying in the streets at alarming rates, many of whom will never be more than a blip on people’s radar or consciousness.  But this little boy innocently claimed the attention of major networks, viewers, and media outlets for 2+ hours.

This is frustrating and sad.  To utilize so many resources to follow the entire path of this balloon “with uninterrupted feeds” as a reporter said on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN Show, “The Situation Room” is frustrating.

1) The continued coverage of this story highlights a lack of prioritization of important issues.  This was news.  But at the point that it can garner the same level, if not more coverage than say the much needed revitalization of New Orleans, it becomes a problem.  It calls to question: is media focused on delivering the most unorthodox, the most shocking, the most out of the ordinary first, or the news itself?  If so, this is entertainment value, not educational value.  Even as I suspect most viewers were watching and praying for the safety of this child, a part of each person viewed this with the avid interest invested into an Emmy-winning sitcom.  What’s going to happen?  I wonder if the main character is scared?  Oh commercial break!  Now we will have to wait for the harrowing conclusion!  In that same 2 hours, nearly 190 tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade Hispanic students made the decision to drop out of school across the country (2002 U.S. Census Bureau Data). 

2) Selective coverage.  This is the most frustrating aspect.  Without becoming too indignant, I will just say that I hear stories of individuals that disappear under much less sensational situations, but definitely with the same implications of danger or harm.  Falcon is covered nonstop – yet I have seen other families beg and plead in a two minute spot on local, 11 PM news coverage for someone to just post a picture of their loved one on a lamp post.  It just frustrates me to see the selectivity with which these incidents are covered, and the devotion with which resources are employed to find some individuals, but not others.  I saw this newscast, and saw these fine people of Colorado going around willing to search literally across 100 square miles for Falcon, which is admirable, to be honest.  Did it help the parents of little Falcon that they all appeared on ABC’s Wife Swap before?  Probably, because I could put money down that more often than not, those type of rescue efforts and news coverage are not used indiscriminately.  I would like to see equity.  You can look at this as the media being concerned about the life of an innocent child; however, similar circumstances across the nation are not nearly as interesting to cover.  I imagine because it did not have the formula for a “breaking news story”.

For that you need drama, a catchy plot, and the makings for amazing spin offs (like the post-news shows that are now inviting “balloon experts” to talk about the path the balloon took and analysts to speculate on why the boy didn’t come out of hiding sooner…)

3) The media airs what will get viewers.  It is really a vicious cycle.  So many people measure the importance of an issue by its coverage in media; meanwhile the media focuses on the stories that will attract the most viewers.  Important becomes substituted by interesting.  Applicability by appeal.  And suddenly, it becomes that much easier to become desensitized to the real, but unappealing.  It becomes easier to relegate issues to the background that no longer have a catchy headline.  I mean who can compete with “a home-made balloon carries boy across Colorado”?

Pretty soon, all of our news will have to come to us in the form of a season-long primetime sitcom – otherwise the problems of the world will just be uninteresting to us.  And we will make it easier to feel like we are doing our part by praying lil’ Falcon’s of the future on home safely, when really, through our own miseducation, we missed praying everyday for the family in the neighborhood who was evicted 3 months ago, because it was just a headline across the bottom of the screen.  We missed praying for the family that lost their son to street violence, because it happens so often that it is no longer unique or “sensational” enough to make our radar of relevant news stories.

Contributor, Young Writer’s Block
Contributor, The Carmon Report

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