Did The Media Play Into Balloon Boy’s Hot Air?

Baloon Boy & Family. AP Photo Courtesy ABC

Balloon Boy & Family. AP Photo Courtesy ABC

So we all know about balloon boy and his whack parents now. The photo above is from early October and has the balloon behind the family.

For over 2 hours, the major news outlets covered a damn balloon flying across the sky, fearing a 6 year old boy was on the inside. When the balloon was found, he was not in it. The parents said he was hiding in an attic.  Well, he was, because his dad told him to do it.

The dad’s crocodile tears as he said we have to watch him a lot better. What. A. Load. Of. Crap.  Remember, they have been on a few reality shows in the past.

Why did the media cover this live? They gave that family all day coverage, something that they obviously wanted. How many copycats will we see now trying to do something like that for media coverage. Was it that slow of a real news day?

Did the media do the right thing covering this event? What should happen to the parents who did this, wasting police efforts and other things?-Dr.FB

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15 Comments
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  • Twinkly1
    Posted at 01:42h, 18 October

    2 bizzare. I feel for the children. If the parents (father) did this for attention he should pay the cost for all of the public safety personnel and time he wasted.

  • Lisa as LRE
    Posted at 00:20h, 18 October

    Oh, btw…does anyone know where I can get one of these balloons and how much one of these big helium balloons cost? I’d like to get one so I don’t have to drive my car. I’ll be able to save money on gas. LOL!

  • Lisa as LRE
    Posted at 00:06h, 18 October

    Yes, they really die think they could fool people with this shit and they DID. Shows you how brainwashed and foolish people are. Including the authorities, the media and people you would think would have known better. It’s no wonder why this country is in the state it’s in. Good grief. Does it really need to proven a hoax? There’s a thing some of us learned about in school called gravity. Since when can a 60 to 75 pound person fly quickly up in the air in a friggin, thin-ass helium balloon? People watched how it was flying way up in the air. If a person was in there it would not have shot up and flown in the air like that. It wasn’t an airplane! It wasn’t a big Hot-air balloon with a basket attached, and it wasn’t a space ship. Some people should be doomed to hell in a helium balloon for being so stupid. They even called military helicopters. LOL!
    No wonder they get away with spending billions of dollars fighting bogus wars instead of putting that money into education. It shows, and if they did put more into education, maybe people wouldn’t be so ignorant. LMAO!

  • GWJ
    Posted at 17:56h, 17 October

    You haven´t proven it was a hoax.

  • Georgie
    Posted at 23:18h, 16 October

    LOL! Did you see the parents cringing as their son exposed their scam? Very uncomfortable viewing, those poor kids looked really uneasy.
    Of course the media were right to cover the story, the whole world was concerned for the kid’s safety, but in light of the hoax the father especially deserves to be slung in the clink, unforgivable..did he really think he could fool people with this shit? What a knob

  • Lisa as LRE
    Posted at 16:47h, 16 October

    I was so angry about this I had to blog first thing this morning. It reveals how the authorities and media really will manipulate people to create something to sell. They know people are that gullible. I was so heated about it all because there are more important things that should be discussed on the news. I’m glad you are intelligent enough to realize the major media played right into all of this crap. I’ll have to check out this website of yours more often since you can see through a lot of BS. It wasn’t because it was a slow day for real news either and their (i.e. the authorities, the media, and the family) reasons for doing all of this is quite pathetic and rather wicked IMO.

  • Concerned
    Posted at 16:22h, 16 October

    Honestly this just looks like a mistake made by the family.

    The statements “for the show” could have easily been referring to asking the kid to re-enact the event before the interview, not when he was actually hiding.

    What I find more concerning is the videos posted to IReport were the entire family is taken into the center of a hurricane.

    http://bit.ly/2Hq6b1

    Posting video of endangering the lives of children who don’t understand the severity of the situation they are in, for what?

    Publicity?

    That offends more than any possible hoax, or waste of resources for a search that should have never happened in the first place if the parents thought about child safety.

    Honestly, who would make a big shiny balloon, and leave it inflated, and only secured with a tether, and then leave both the balloon and young inquisitive children unsupervised?

    The family is lucky the child is alive, given this situation it sounds like something like this was inevitable, it could have been so much worse.

    Sadly, I doubt this is the last time you will see this family in the news.

    October 17, 2009 4:19 AM

  • Boy In Balloon Hoax | All celebrities online
    Posted at 15:17h, 16 October

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  • chris
    Posted at 14:02h, 16 October

    Two questions…
    Where did he supposedly get into that thing? And…
    If it were my child I thought was in it (or fallen out) I sure as hell wouldn;t have been “home in my office”, I would have jumped into my car and at least tried to track it, or find him had he fallen out…totally frantic i may add!

  • Esther
    Posted at 10:35h, 16 October

    Even me- all the way in Amsterdam- followed balloon boy live through CNN and the internet. Did the father really intended a publicity stunt? Who know if that’s true or not.
    The kid blurted out something during the live interview with Wolf Blitzer, Dad obviously didn’t expect it and turned his anger on the Blitzer, who had every journalistic right to interrogate him on what the little brat said.
    Turning back to the question if the media was right in covering this: I’d say why not? It could have been that there was really a kid in danger. I rather have “the media” covering silly kids in danger than a suicide bomber who also does this crap for the evil publicity – and thus political- stunts of his leaders.

  • whellz
    Posted at 10:13h, 16 October

    Has it been proven this was a hoax! I am a Storm Chaser myself, does this make me a “freek” ? Any parent knows that sometimes kids hide if they think they did something wrong. Now if it is a hoax, the parents should be locked up and fined ALL the cost of the search, but until then, cut the family a break!

  • Moni
    Posted at 10:09h, 16 October

    The media and its staff in the last 10-15 yrs has become bored and look for anything to make news and put it on live for ratings. I dont know what they are teaching now in Journalism or Liberal Arts Colleges but the “National Enquire-ism” antics are not classy. Examples include OJ Simpson, Micheal Jackson, 9-11, Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Obama, etc. etc. They beat it to death!! And they overanalyze BS to death too!! Jeez, how many non-consultants you need for a point of view?

    In the end its all about money and ratings. Also, we as an audience have become so desensitized to all this sensationalism…so much…that we eat it up. And they (the media) throw more scraps to us. Have we degenerated ourselves to mere wolves?

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