Balloon Boy Underscores Media Folly: We’re All Digitally Duped

If you are tired of media manipulated stories passing as so-called news and media that is dumb enough to cover them like they were legitimate fare, raise your hand. Better yet, stand up and at the top of your lungs, give it the old Howard Beale yelp, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

The rant by the fictional TV news anchor in the 1976 movie Network could as easily, and more justifiably, be directed these days toward the lunatic fringe that resides on the web seeking out attention and all the wealth that 15-minutes of fame can bring.

This weekend’s inane balloon boy story is the best example yet of the vagaries of real-time video and talk,  feeding on everything in sight like a piranha.

On Friday, newspaper, television, radio and online  news organization were stumbling over each other trying to get a fix on whether six-year-old Falcon Heene had climbed into his father’s experimental weather balloon before it took off for a 50 miles flight, triggering a five-hour search for the boy in Colorado Springs, CO.

Even the town sheriff was initially convinced of the parents’ distraught concern. News-gathering teams started getting suspicious when they discovered the father, Richard Heene, a recent contestant on the reality show “Wife Swap,” had called local TV news  and the FAA before calling 911 for help claiming he could not find his youngest of three sons.

By Sunday, the sheriff was pursuing criminal charges against the parents (for conspiracy, making false reports and contributing to the delinquency and endangerment of a minor) over what turned out to be an apparent hoax. Some blogs were reporting 48 hours after the incident was first reported that they might have been seeking a Hollywood agent.

“It was a publicity stunt done with hopes of better maneuvering themselves for a reality TV show,” said Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden. Sadly, people who will use their own children to manipulate the press for celebrity attention, and a press that allows itself to be manipulated right along with side show entertainers, are not about to go away. They have become precious commodities in the business of digital duping in which all parties willingly take part.

While serious charges were pending over the weekend, the Heene balloon stunt had become fodder for a TV Guide poll,  a Saturday Night Live skit and even an article in the “Capitalist tool,” Forbes

It appears no one can resist writing about whatever  makes Google’s top 40 hot trends based on the most topics searched, which assures them page views and pick up by blogs, which then perpetuate the viral frenzy.

Of course, the press isn’t really the press anymore. The 24/7 stream of user-generated content – from Twitter chit to Facebook chat and citizen reporting with smart phone cameras – are the successors to The New York Times and NBC News. Afraid that they will continue to be scooped on the day’s minutiae, the skilled and studied Fourth Estate chases after every whimper on cyber space out of fear that it will turn out to be something newsworthy that they missed. But attention and news clearly are two different things.

Attention-seeking Heene apparently will get what he wants. Even a six-year prison sentence and up to $1 million in felony fines would eventually land him a place as a quasi-celeb on some quack reality show. After all, it seems to have worked for others, and the press is sure to continue following him around – just look at the witless saga of Kate and Jon.

Maybe  the media would get some of its self-respect and stature back if it stopped chasing its tail long enough to get a grip on real-life reality – not the kind manufactured for  prime time television.

Stepping back from the fray makes you realize that we are hopelessly caught up in a vortex of  high-pitched overblown, overdone, non-news that encourages the savvy –from impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to Richard Heene – to use other people, social media and the press to advance their own agenda. And as far as I can tell, we’ll keep letting them do it.

With the lines blurred between manufactured and genuine news, and cyber chat and headline services, it is little wonder that two-thirds of Americans think the news stories they read, hear and watch are inaccurate, constituting the lowest level of skepticism toward the press since Pew Research began taking a media poll in 1985. Credibility of all so-called new and old news-related organizations is at an all-time low.

There is no putting  the lid back on Pandora’s Box. The only thing we have control over in this virtual and volatile new digital world is our own response. So, maybe the press establishment could try focusing on matters of  true significance – and not just the headlines. Digging down into the substance and analysis of events, issues and information that matter most to our lives. Maybe the broadcast networks, CNN and MSNBC, the local newscasts, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and every other self-proclaimed member of the Fourth Estate can resist covering every twisted angle of every non-story as if t was news and reclaim their place as the guardians of all the purposeful information and insight that is “fit to print.”

It beats abdicating their time-honored  role by getting down in the muck with the bottom feeders.