Not for nothing, as they say on The Sopranos, do I generally keep my mouth shut about media freakouts. But this Colorado Clusterfuck illustrates so much public and private dysfunction, and only some of it can be blamed on the means by which the story is broadcast. I am indeed disappointed that the talk is of hoaxes, conspiracies, perpetrators and the like, as if these words weren’t of themselves editorial. I’m also disappointed at how breezily all these media outlets contribute to the gradual, intentional devaluation of skeptical thought. The Daily Show often frames this as an inherent problem with a 24-hour news cycle. My take is, if you have time to fill, why not include a full-throated expression of doubt that it’s even physically possible for a boy to hide in that thing?
Seriously, from the get-go this story never passed the sniff test. Eleven ounces of Mylar holding a forty-pound kid? When I launched my own homemade UFO over ten years ago, my conspirators and I had to cut off four tiny little LED lights that were weighing it down too much.
Writing about the McMartin Preschool case, another one that devolved quickly from sympathy to revenge, New York Times reporter Margaret Talbot said, “When you once believed something that now strikes you as absurd, even unhinged, it can be almost impossible to summon that feeling of credulity again.” You may remember the charge that one of the teachers was flushing children down the toilet into secret Satanic ritual abuse chambers built below the school. I bring this up for two reasons: first, all the significance assigned to pukey little Falcon when he said, “you guys said that, um, we did this for the show,” and second, these are two cases which could easily have been deflated (I just made that up!) by the most defective of bullshit detectors.
Having muddied the waters for future, better hoaxes, Richard Heene will figure out a way to have his moment again. He seems to aspire to the kind of despicable anti-hero so beloved by reality-show producers. He’s a Real Housewife, whose real crime is acting like one without a contract.
Tags: Balloon boy · Falcon Heene · lighter than gravity2 Comments
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This could have been so easily avoided if only the media had access to some sort of person with knowledge of the physical properties of matter. A “Physics-ist,” if you will.