My problem with the balloon boy incident isn’t really with balloon boy himself, or with his family who sought to capitalize on the  concocted fiasco.  In a media driven society, it is only natural that people will seek to use the media to their advantage. Celebrities, politicians, activists, and entrepreneurs all do it.  Why not the balloon family?

The problem I have with balloon boy and his family is two-fold.  First, they got caught.  The balloon boy was outed by, well, himself during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.  When balloon boy was asked by Wolf why he did what he did, the boy replied, “for the show”.  Oh well, at that point the gig was up.  Not everyone can manipulate the media with the grace and style of Tim Geithner or the Wall Street wing tippers.  The first rule of media manipulation is that everyone must tell the exact same lie at the exact same time.  Oh well, better luck next time balloon boy.

Those who truly draw my ire are the network reporters and station owners who gave balloon boy and his family a spotlight and platform.  Even if the boy had been trapped in a balloon floating above Mars at 4 gazillion feet, was there any real need met by making it breaking news on every station? Who benefited from the media interrupting programming only to advise us that they knew no more now than they did 10 minutes earlier?

When the lead up to the war in Iraq fails to capture the full attention of the media,   but balloon boy gets two hours of uninterrupted coverage, we are forced to ask ourselves two essential questions about the American media.  What is their purpose and who do they serve?

It is true that with regard to smaller, everyday issues, the media plays a valuable role.  Consumer reporters do a decent job of alerting the public to online scams, supermarket deals, and car crash reports.  The problem now though is that the media is only willing to cover small issues and controversies. They’ve dwarfed into low level risk takers.

They won’t do an in depth investigation into how the bailout money was distributed (by both the Obama and Bush administrations) but let a boy go missing in a balloon and they swarm like bees to honey. By reacting this way, the media creates the illusion that they are serving the public interest when all the while, they are merely quenching America’s thirst for sensationalism.

Some would argue that since the media is only satisfying the public’s appetite, it is the public, not the media, who are to blame for the decline in meaningful media coverage. However, I would argue that since the media created the public’s desire for fake news by introducing them to it and relentlessly promoting it as a” feel good”  substitute for real news, it is they who bear the majority of responsibility.

You can no more blame the public for succumbing to the media’s use of fake news as you can blame them for overspending in a society where unfettered capitalism abounds.  Although the public is not without blame in this societal failure, their culpability is mitigated by the fact that it was never their intention to reduce or undermine our national dialogue.  They were fooled by those whose job it is to encourage substantial public discourse on issues both domestic and international.

The media has consistently and predictably abdicated their role in our democracy.  Whether this is due to incompetence or a more nefarious plot is up for debate.  But one thing’s for sure, it isn’t balloon boy or his family who should be hanging their head in shame right now, it’s the media.