Post 3: Balloon Boy and Our Fascination with the Eccentric: What Does it All Mean?

When I first found out about the Balloon Boy incident, I remember I had no idea what Balloon Boy even meant. I saw it show up on my Facebook status of a friend from high school:

"...you know your country's in trouble when: 1.) An idiotic parent loses their kid inside a balloon. 2.) It's all over the news."

I went on the New York Times homepage to see what exactly was going on and I saw that they had "updated 6 minutes ago" that the mysterious boy was no where to be found. The image that was placed front and center on the homepage was a picture of the deflated balloon on the ground with despondent people looking on. After reading the headline, I still had no idea what was going on. Did I click on the link to the full story? No. I wasn't curious about this story, maybe because I somehow knew that this story did NOT deserve to be headlining on the New York Times website.

It reminded me of the time I was eating dinner at the Ratty and I saw on the flat-screen TV in the back a CNN "developing story" on Twittelah. Then I saw some moving marquis about Jewish mothers and got really confused. Twittelah sounded like Twitter, the new social networking site, but what did Jewish mothers have to do with it?



When I went back to my room, I went on YouTube to find out what this Twittelah business was all about.



After watching the video on YouTube describing Twittelah, I was extremely disappointed. Not by Twittelah, mind you, but CNN! How could something like this be a "developing story"? Wasn't there "real news" that needed reportage?

Why do stories like Twittelah and Balloon Boy get so much coverage? Sure, the content and feel of the story is somewhat different from stories like the Texas Compound, but Americans seem really fascinated with "unimportant" events like these. It could definitely be that sometimes when people go home from work, kick off their shoes and plop down on the couch in front of the TV, they want to tune in to a not-so-serious story, something easily processed by their tired and overworked minds. My father, the eternal skeptic/cynic, is not fooled by the apparent front these stories put on.

When the Hudson River plane landing occurred earlier this year, my dad looked way past the constant coverage after the incident and saw it as a ploy and media tactic plotted by not the media, but the government! As the "Miracle on the Hudson" occurred, the news that had previously flooded (no pun intended) the news networks was the Illinois Senate seat controversy. It's definitely possible that the government could've urged the news networks to really milk the Hudson story as much as possible, especially with the impending inauguration.

My dad may have a point. Since we learned in class that the government and the media have a tenuous relationship, it's definitely possible that the press did everything possible to avert attention away from controversy and focus it on something more positive and uplifting. However, this then brings up the fact that Obama was still not president. Therefore, how much control could he have had in subduing the news that surrounded his state? Since the Republican Party still technically controlled the Oval Office, would they really care about Obama possibly getting bad press?

I don't know how much of the excessive "Miracle on the Hudson" coverage was due to the possibility that it was to cover the Illinois Senate seat controversy, but I do know that the extent to which this event was covered was suspiciously overwhelming. Maybe I, along with my dad, am just being a little too cynical when it comes to the news. I definitely think that the press knows the kind of news we want to hear, regardless of how pertinent or important it is in the world.