Balloon Boy: Don't shoot the messenger

OK, I was had. I believed in Balloon Boy. Or, rather, I believed that his parents believed that he was in the balloon. And I hoped that they were wrong, that he was hiding under the bed, or in a box. And I was happy - genuinely happy - when I learned that, in fact, he was.

So now I'm mad at the Heenes for wasting my time and recklessly misusing public safety resources. I'm mad at whatever TV network was allegedly their co-conspirator. But I'm not mad in the least at CNN, Fox News Channel, or MSNBC for going all-out with the story last Thursday. Arianna Huffington might think it was a waste of airtime, but I don't. Not even now.

Let's start with the premise that, except in a time of actual crisis, there is no need for 24-hour news. And let's think about what the networks might have been covering, instead. Yes, of course, there are important stories out there, which merit coverage and get it - in Afghanistan, in Iraq, on Wall Street, on Capitol Hill (where many machinations are political theater, designed for display on 24-hour news channels). But these are ongoing stories, developing at incremental paces. What was happening specifically on Thursday afternoon that was more compelling than an emotional, visually-arresting, evocative drama playing out in the Colorado skies? A drama that was certain to have a discrete ending -- just not quite the one we expected?

I'm not saying the networks were perfect. Unsurprisingly, the talking heads often had no idea what they were talking about (though the head of the Experimental Balloon and Airship Association must have thought he was born for this day). The feverish speculation about a mysterious speck, captured in a photo below the errant balloon, was distasteful at best. But let's also remember: The Larimer County, Colo., authorities might have gone on believing these folks if it weren't for that Wolf Blitzer interview. Sometimes, it's not so bad to have the media horde on the case.