VGRC

I really hate the mainstream news media. I really do.

No doubt by now, you've all heard of the story of the boy trapped in a balloon that turned out to be an elaborate hoax. The reason I say "no doubt" is the 24/7 news coverage this story has gotten over the past week. As soon as the makeshift aircraft went up in the air with a boy supposedly inside it several thousand feet in the air, a media frenzy descended upon Fort Collins, Colorado, eager to capitalize on the harrowing story of a boy on the brink of death.

So everything else was literally dropped, and "Balloon Boy" had quickly become the only footage on TV as the entirety of America was glued to their sets waiting to see Balloon Boy's craft crash and get a glimpse of the child's entrails shoveled into the back of an ambulance so they'd have something to talk about at work the next day.

Needless to say, ratings skyrocketed and fed the frenzy, and with broadcasters going as far to proclaim that it could not possibly be a hoax. In fact, when the solid balloon crashed, the only possible scenario was that the boy had somehow passed through the solid walls of the balloon and fell from it and a manhunt was organized to find his pieces. Because after all, it could not possibly be a hoax, right?

OOPS, HE WAS IN THE GARAGE ALL ALONG!

But where is our dead child? We invested a lot of money into reporting on this! We sent out news helicopters and search parties and gave it 24/7 news coverage! We gave you all that, and you can't provide us with a fucking corpse? TIME TO GET ANGRY.

And thus, the collective news media has been decrying the hoax, screaming for a "punishment" ranging from everything such as fines and throwing the parents in jail to giving the state custody of the children to juvenile detention. Every reporter who ended up with egg on their face, because they were too goddamn stupid to think critically for more than 5 seconds before screaming into a camera "A BOY IS TRAPPED IN THE BALLOON," is now calling for the crucifixion of the kid, as well as his father who orchestrated the stunt.

In other words, passing the blame. This "hoax" did nothing more than prove how outright ridiculous the media can get, and everybody involved with blowing this story out of proportion can't handle the fact that maybe, just maybe, they are more to blame than the kid and his father. Even more, they can't handle the fact that the family is likely going to walk out of this with several book and magazine deals and profit off these reporter's stupidity. And now these reporters have to deal with the fact that they just embarrassed themselves in front of millions of people who they sold this story to so fervently. Forget the attention-whoring antics of the child's family: The media is just as much to blame for succumbing to this crap on a quest for ratings and giving them the attention they wanted. I have absolutely no pity for anybody that fell for this, and neither should anybody else.

Perhaps next time a ball of tinfoil floats into the sky, we don't surround it with a million helicopters and vans and cameras because some shitty reporter has a hope that he can be the first person to report that a six year old child that is capturing the world's attention just suffered a seven thousand foot fall to his death. There is such a thing as OVERKILL, and people should be taking this as a lesson.

And they can start by letting this go and going back to covering news that actually matters.

To Fox, CNN, NBC and everybody else: YHBT YHL HAND


On a lighter note, kudos to the guys that got Papa John's to deliver pizza to the family during a live news broadcast. If I was wearing a hat right now, I would be tipping it to you.