How About a Little Coverage of the Millions of At-Risk Kids Not Trapped in a Balloon (or Hiding in the Attic)?

No matter what happens in the unfolding legal saga of the Heene family, the most appropriate response to the whole matter was that of Falcon Heene. He vomited. Twice. On national TV. Well, let me just say that Falcon speaks for me.

I had to stifle the same urge as I watched so much of the media devote so much of their resources to the story of the boy NOT in the balloon.

And, sure, I know that asking the media to have some sense of perspective on a story like this is like asking a dog not to bark. It's in their nature to give breathless, wall-to-wall coverage to these kinds of stories. But, even knowing this, I was shocked how little changed in the volume and tone of the coverage even after it was known the boy wasn't in the balloon. Even then, after we knew the balloon was empty, they kept running footage of the balloon, hour after hour.

As Bill Maher said on Real Time, "they're calling him Balloon Boy, which is so stupid, because the one thing we know about this kid, is that he was not in a balloon."

We actually know a lot more about Falcon. And we certainly know how concerned every anchor covering the story was about his welfare.

If ever we needed an example of the difference between sentimentality and empathy, this was it. As the story unfolded on Thursday, Wolf Blitzer told us how "deeply worried" he was about Falcon, and that he was "totally fearing the worst." Rick Sanchez talked about the "big hug" he'd give his own child if it happened to him (does Rick have a giant balloon in his backyard too?). And one Fox anchor expressed relief that a skydiver she was interviewing while Falcon's fate was still up in the air (sorry!) gave her "a little bit of hope" about the weather conditions the balloon was flying in because she was "worried about how cold this child might be."

Who knew the media were so "deeply worried" about the welfare of children? Well, as it turns out, their concern only extends to children in certain circumstances -- such as when they are thought to be trapped in a runaway balloon. Or when they have been washed up on U.S. shores in an inner tube and are forcibly repatriated to Cuba.

Remember Elian Gonzales? Watching the media's collective palpitations over Balloon Boy -- even after he turned out to be Attic Boy -- my mind immediately did a flashback to 2000 and the emotion-laden coverage of Elian, including Diane Sawyer standing on her head.

Back then, I felt the same uneasy feeling about what it takes for the media to care about at-risk kids.

In the midst of the hysteria over Elian, Jonathan Kozol came out with a book called Ordinary Resurrections, which featured the moving story of a boy named Elio who was the same age as Elian.

He was, as I wrote in a column in May 2000, a "little boy... living in the South Bronx, surrounded by gunfire, families being evicted, hungry people begging in the street. His mother works at a drugstore near St. Ann's church; his father is 'upstate' -- South Bronx shorthand for prison."

And while Elian was on the cover of Time magazine three times, no news magazines were writing about the thousands of Elios around America. "Why do we feel so much for Elian and so little for Elio?" I asked. "Why are we doing everything we can -- trips to Disney World, Nintendo games, playmates flown in from Cuba -- to make Elian happy, while leaving Elio to fend for himself?"

It wasn't a rhetorical question. I didn't know the answer then and I don't know the answer now.

The media are addicted to small-bore, high-drama stories like these. Two years after Elian, I wrote about the media binging on the Robert Blake trial and called for an intervention to help the media break its ersatz crisis habit. My call wasn't successful, to put it mildly.

Three years after that, the media devoted countless hours to the case of Natalee Holloway, the young woman who went missing in Aruba. "When defending these choices," I wrote in June of 2005, "news execs inevitably fall back on the old 'we're just giving the people what they want.'"

And not surprisingly, they're saying the same thing now. Which was why, when I went on the Ed Schultz show to talk about Afghanistan, I ended up spending most of the segment talking instead about a runaway balloon with no boy inside.

I find the media's obsession with these non-stories especially galling when they lead to endless agonizing over the welfare of a child -- agonizing that is sorely missing when there isn't a hot air balloon or inner tube in shark-infested waters involved.

So now that we know that Falcon is safe, how about repurposing some of that concern for, say:

-- the over 1.5 million children who are homeless.

-- the 42 percent of homeless children who are under the age of 6.

-- the one in six homeless children who suffers from an emotional problem.

It doesn't have to be wall-to-wall coverage, but how about some coverage of the 75 to 100 percent increase in the number of children who are newly homeless because of the foreclosure crisis? Or the 13 million American children living in poverty?

Not going to happen, you say? What if we built a giant balloon, put all 13 million of them in it, and just let it float away? Even better, let's just say that we did. It'll be a win-win-win. The news producers will have a giant balloon to shoot, the news anchors will have a fresh outlet for all that concern, and millions of kids in desperate need of some concern, attention, and time in the media spotlight will finally get it.

 

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Comments

[Michelle Kaufer]

AMEN!!!!! Thank you for saying it!!!

[tdterry1999]

HOW ABOUT PEOPLE NOT HAVING KIDS TILL THEY CAN SUPPORT THEM.What about working your way out of being poor.I would never let my kid go homeless i would work as many min.wage jobs as i had to to provide for a kid of mine.There are way to many opitionds in American for these excuses

[CosmicChaos]

Balloon Boy day was when the President was supposed to be bringing much needed Media attention to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

The news interrupted the President of the United States who was speaking in New Orleans (after the news had just whined about the President not spending enough time on Gulf Coast issues) for the Balloon Boy story. The news NEVER went back to what is going on in New Orleans, but there is still a ton of coverage for Balloon Boy and his family.

This is so wrong...

[lainey]

Thanks for keeping the focus where it belongs...on our children in crisis. As a foster parent who had a child removed from our home after 9 months due to the color of our skin and saw the labels they threw on her to keep her from getting the best education, I am accutely aware of how little the media and our institiutions care about our most vulnerable citizens; our children. This young girl was finally in a place where she achieved her academic, emotional, and social best and the system used race as a means to destroy her life. The adults abandoned her. And adults do it all the time. I do believe that when the media takes the time to tackle the issues children face-- day in and day out-- we will see our situations turn around. As long as we care about the reality stars of the day and give attention to those who use their children for fame, we will have a tough time recovering. As long as we allow our systems to neglect our beloved children and use past tactics to promote their best, we will not see our own very best.

[ClarcKing]

The American people must come to grips/reconcile with the casualties, the trillion dollars cost of war, the trillion dollar bailouts, and 1.5 million homeless children, millions of families foreclosed, 30 million needing high paying jobs. A crime can not be detected?

[WeMustSpeakOut]

Not when so many of the people and agencies that are supposed to enforce the rule of law are the very perpetrators themselves! Herein lies our predicament.

[Nomccain]

Republicans don't care about anyone but their own selfish butts. They're so afraid they might have to endure raised taxes that they're rabid. They'd rather their taxes go to finance two wars and pay off what Bush ran up during his administration. They're a selfish, incompassionate bunch only motivated by power and money and the right to flaunt the word NO.

[devans00]

FTA:
"news execs inevitably fall back on the old 'we're just giving the people what they want.'"

I always wonder about who "the people" are who only care and want to know about blonde girls or very photogenic children in the news. People caught up in bizarre situations. "The people" must think everyone else can go take a flying jump in the lake.

Personally, I care and want to know about anyone in need of help. Regardless of age, gender or social background. Apparently, I'm in the minority in that thinking going by what stories get attention..

[RanJo]

A most excellent article that speaks to the same concerns I've had for years. What of the millions of children, right here in our very front yard, that go unnoticed, unreported, and uncared for? We waste billions and billions of dollars on overseas boondoggles while our most innocent citizens are forgotten. Shame on us.

[Gwenim]

Humans are built to notice the unusual. It’s a survival instinct. And it’s sad commentary on the world our children live in that homelessness, abuse, and violence are not unusual enough.

[Dukedraven]

I was in Thailand last weekend and my TV set got only about 4 channels, and that was the main story covered over and over. Oy vey!

[Entitlement]

During the school days, if I am at my office in the morning, I can watch the school children go out of the homeless shelter to their school bus. They are escorted by adults who help the children navigate around the homeless adults who sleep on the sidewalks outside of the shelter. The children walk by these people yelling and mumbling obscenities. The children see these people with their broken bodies and torn faces. They realize that they are homeless too and that this might be what they are going to look like too when they grow up.

A recent study suggested that poverty for a child was the developmental equivalent of having a stroke between the stress, the lack of nutrition, the lack of health care, the broken home environments, the lack of mentoring and caring guidance.

So, they walk to their bus. This bus is a special bus. It takes them to the school that they went to before they were homeless. It is an attempt to provide them some sense of normalcy. The reality is that it is to make us feel that we gave them a sense of normalcy. We want happy homeless children. The reality is that since we aren't doing anything effective at this point in time, the faces they see looking up at them in the morning as they walk to the bus are far more instructional than anything they will learn in school that day.

[ianmcc]

i'm posting this here as there are no other threads on HP that seemed appropriate. I am just really saddened at yesterday's death of 10 yr old Shiloh Pepin, "the mermaid girl". She was so tough and couragous to put up with all that she did with her physical disabilities. I just learned about her maybe two weeks ago on some tv special and it broke my heart when she was so excited to go to a special needs summer camp but then wanted to come home as her care needs were too high even for that place.

May she fly high in heaven and my heart goes out to her mother. I'm not the type of person that is all that much into prayer, but Shiloh's mom will be in mine tonight.

[medic628]

This may be a little off topic but a real close look at education management organizations should be examined. We are trading the education of our children to a mostly for profit corporate model under the banner of the efficient application of budgetary concerns and the illusion of better management. When such a model is applied, good teachers that have been in place for a long time are gotten rid of and less experienced teachers are brought in and are paid less, as an example. What is more important, the bottom line of the (EMO), the school, or the education of the students? School boards across the country are quietly being taken over or are convinced into ceding power to such companies. The education of the children is at stake.

[ScribblerG]

I'm just as sick of the coverage of this non-story as the author - maybe more - because I would never write about it. And yes, I would like to instead see coverage of more substantive issues, including coverage of poverty and homelessness. But what I don't want to see is lies. The author quotes a number of 1.5 million homeless children in th U.S. which uses a definition of homelessness not used by HUD and the academic community. This number came from a study by the National Center on Family Homelessness in 2006 that decided to include families who were living 'doubled up' (with family or friends) or paying a very high percentage of their income on rent. Without this adjustment, the number from HUD was 330,000. I would imagine both numbers have gone up since then given the deterioration of the economy, but that is besides the point. I'm so sick of the homeless advocates ginning up fake numbers to bolster there cause - it's really the worst kind of fear-mongering.

[skaola]

Huffingtonpost and Arianna Huffington personally have the power to challenge influential people, especially women, to take action on behalf of American children. At first to organize a conference with participation of people like Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, Oprah, Sarah Palin, members of Senate and Congress, members of the press and entertainment industry, charities and children advocates to establish what and how can be done , and done fast. Children are not only being homeless, they are also dying, even killed by their own stressed or crazy families.

[justin90069]

Researchers estimate that between 5 and 7 percent (between 1 million and 1.5 million adolescents) of the general teenage population experiences at least one episode of homelessness each year. This number does not include young adults (aged 18 to 24) who experience homelessness. Homeless youth and young adults are at risk for physical abuse, sexual exploitation, mental health disabilities, chemical or alcohol dependency, and death. (Courtesy of the National Alliance to End Homelessness)

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