"What an indictment of the culture we have created - a culture in which even kids come to think that a potentially serious stunt is worth trying to pull off because it might make the talking heads chatter and the TV screens glow."
Editorial page, New York Daily News 10/17/09
That pretty well sums up my reaction to the Balloon Boy drama in Colorado that played out on national news channels this week. Whether the boy said he caused a massive and expensive search "for the show" because his reality show star father wanted to or not, the fact that 6-year-old Falcon Heene would think to say this is somewhat disturbing. The family was on TV's "Wife Swap" a short time ago. The other aspect of the story is how much press it gets at the expense of other news that actually impacts our lives. You expect this kind of focus on the 7:00pm tabloid shows. Meanwhile a story like the threat of the Taliban to nuclear-armed Pakistan gets overlooked. You've got to wonder if what's considered serious news has gotten too concerned about giving us what we want (and ratings for themselves) at the expense of what we need.
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