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Can’t Resist Talking About Balloon Boy

Anyone who has a communication device in the US now knows about Richard and Mayumi Heene, who claimed that their 6-year old son had accidentally climbed into a makeshift balloon that Richard had built and it was floating away out of control and they don’t know what to do. The kid hid in a box in the garage attic, which was why they claimed they thought he had left. So of course when the balloon finally landed and first responders assiduously ripped the thing apart, there was no kid. For 90 minutes a helicopter followed the balloon by video, and the whole country stopped what they were doing (including at the New York Stock Exchange!) and watched in the hope that disaster would not befall the youngster.

So a few days ago Mayumi admitted it was all a hoax after the kid said on a TV interview that “we did it for a show.” She said they did it to make themselves more marketable for reality TV shows. They had already been on the TV show “Wife Swap” several times. I’ve heard they pay about $30,000 each time a family is on there. Do it enough and you can make a living at it!

So what are the economic issues surrounding this? First, the desperation that leads a family in these tough times to pull such a crazy stunt. Second, the instantaneous nature of the ability to deliver breaking news is indeed both extraordinary and risky. In the old days we would not have heard anything about this until it was over. Not sure if that is good or bad. Third is the dramatic growth in our TV world of these reality shows. They are very inexpensive to make, and it seems that, especially now, the only thing that makes us feel good is seeing people even worse off than we are, or some sort of romantic happy ending to feel good about. There remain a number of quality network TV shows, but it’s gone down for sure. This morning I watched an old rerun of the classic “Hogan’s Heroes.” I’d rather watch that all day than the balloon family anytime.