The Last of the Balloon...

...I hope... Unless the kid, Falcon Heene, puts on an aluminum cape and takes flight from the roof of their home, and he flys up, up and away -- rather than going the shorter route from the roof to the ground -- this will be the end of the Balloon Boy story. But I doubt it. The family's father still has to get his reality show contract even if, or mostly because, he goes to jail; or if the kid keeps throwing up every time he's in front of the cameras! In which case, like they say, "the show must go on!" Good grief.

So far, in a nut shell:


PEJ News Coverage Index: October 12-18, 2009

'Balloon Boy’ Takes Flight

Balloon Boy: From Heart Stopping Drama to Alleged Hoax


The saga of the boy named Falcon Heene began as a cable news moment and it generated by far the most coverage in that sector (16% of airtime studied). The story had its share of plot twists. The first one was the audible sigh of relief from viewers when it was discovered that the boy was not trapped inside the helium-filled balloon that finally fell to earth in a Colorado field.


Given the fascination with the story, some of the media narrative looked at the role of the press itself. On October 16, Washington Post (and CNN) media critic Howard Kurtz wrote that the cable networks could not be blamed for the live coverage since “the authorities, and the media, believed they had a credible report that the kid had climbed aboard this weird balloon rocket that his family had constructed…It seemed to be a life-and-death drama as the balloon was buffeted by the winds. I was in two different offices during that hour, and in both places people were gathered around television sets, slack-jawed, transfixed.”

On Ed Schultz’s liberal radio talk show however, the host was upbraided by guest Lizz Winstead (a co-creator of the “Daily Show”) for his interest in the subject.

“Stop talking about these box balloon people,” she asserted. “What are you doing? This is not a story for you. And the only reason you should be talking about a balloon floating across America for two hours is if the TARP money that we’ve lost is in it. Ed, seriously…get a grip!”

As for the story itself, the suspicion that it might have been a bizarre hoax began to quickly surface and built as more became known about the Heene family. The little boy himself raised some early suspicions during an October 15 CNN interview when he told Wolf Blitzer, that “you guys,” meaning his parents, “said...we did this for the show.”


Appearing on the October 16 edition of Anderson Cooper’s CNN show, legal analyst Lisa Bloom raised questions about the family’s credibility.

“Anderson, this is a family that has their own YouTube station, that's done two reality shows [including] “Wife Swap” where cameras are in the home for large periods of time filming the children. Apparently this father has tried to sell other reality shows unsuccessfully so you have to wonder if this is a stunt,” she said.

By the weekend, those suspicions appeared to be validated.

“Deputies searched the home of a couple caught up in Colorado’s ‘balloon boy’ saga Saturday night after the sheriff said he was pursuing criminal charges in a case that at first sparked fear for the child, then relief he was OK, then suspicions of a hoax,” the Associated Press reported.


Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ

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All photos (screen caps) are by Peter, especially the first and last hunks.

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