Balloon Dad to Pose for Playgirl

It's my own fault, I know, for watching Showbiz Tonight over the weekend, but I couldn't find the news on any other channel, and I'd forgotten that HLN, better known as CNN's Headline News, had turned its definition of journalism over to Nancy Grace, host of "television's only justice themed/interview/debate show, designed for those interested in the breaking crime news of the day"; to Robin Meade, author of Morning Sunshine!: How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It, Too; to Jane Velez-Mitchell, author of iWant: My Journey from Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life, who has been "stand[ing] up for the powerless, and speak[ing] for those who don't have a voice" on HLN since Glenn Beck left it for Fox News. And, of course, to Showbiz Tonight.

At the top of the show, they teased a story about a cartoon making fun of Jessica Simpson's weight that Fox had run on its NFL Sunday program. In the skit, an animated version of Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber says, "Man, I still can't believe [Cowboys quarterback] Tony [Romo] dated Jessica Simpson, even after she blew up bigger than [Cowboys offensive tackle] Flozell Adams!"

Jessica Simpson, in case you have been reading books during the past decade, is a singer who became famous for a reality show, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, in which she co-starred with then-husband Nick Lachey. Subsequently she has been famous for being famous, for pumping too much Restylane into her lips, for jinxing Romo's gridiron performance, and for, well, blowing up bigger than Flozell Adams.

When I saw the cartoon clip at the beginning of Showbiz Tonight, instead of changing the channel, something made me count "one" to myself, and linger. Sure enough, a few minutes later, they showed the cartoon again. Before the segment about the cartoon finally arrived, there had also been showings three, four, five and six. And just as surely as I knew it would be shown a seventh time, I also knew what would come out from Showbiz Tonight host A.J. Hammer's mouth: "They should be ashamed of themselves."

HLN, which aired the clip seven times in order to keep suckers like me watching, was calling Fox shameful for airing it once.

None of this, of course, is surprising. But it helps to put the balloon boy hoax in perspective. The CNN mothership got punked by Richard Heene because the story was too good to verify, and Heene punked CNN because he wanted to leverage the stunt into a Heene family reality show. If that doesn't work out, maybe Playgirl will pay him to pose. Why not? Levi Johnston isn't the only hot dude in town, and getting money for letting strangers look at your junk is pretty much the same thing that Nick and Jessica and all the other pretty exhibitionists are all about.

If it were only about money, it wouldn't be as dangerous to democracy as it is, but it's also about attention. People have only so much bandwidth. Media have only so much airtime. The lobbyists who are systematically gutting the powers of the new consumer financial protection agency are counting on the public's being distracted by infotainment. The Wall Street firms partying like it's 1999 are relying on people's addiction to stories about little girls down in wells and little boys up in balloons. The Halliburtons and Blackwaters who are richly profiting from tragedy are betting that the nutter debate about the Mayan calendar's prediction of a 2012 apocalypse will displace a sober debate about apocalypse now. When Big Pharma buys Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars, it depends on the media's being bored by old news about special interests, and being floored by breaking news about Jon & Kate Plus 8.

Right now Pakistan's army is mounting a huge offensive against terrorists in South Waziristan. This won't help American troops in Afghanistan, because the three major terrorist networks attacking us there -- the Quetta Shura Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Hizb-i-Islami Galbuddin -- operate from other areas of Pakistan. I know this from reading an article by Mark Sappenfield in the Christian Science Monitor, from which I copied out those unfamiliar words letter by letter.

I don't expect Showbiz Tonight, and I guess I shouldn't even expect HLN, to pound those odd names into my noggin with the same relentlessness that put Jessica Simpson there. But I have the sinking feeling that when President Obama announces his plans for Afghanistan, the consequence of the media diet that the average American consumes will be that most people listening to him will know more about Levi Johnston's three-week moose meat diet and workout plan than about those bewildering terrorist groups with all those q's. It's that, and not the seven replays of the fat-jibe cartoon, that will be shameful.

This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.

 

Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan

Comments

[anitaj]

Well said. We need to be paying more attention to the things that really matter.

As for Richard Heene posing nude ... I've already seen waaaaay too much of this guy.

[haimchaim]

he has a son of a Falcon, so worry not he is talented, & more than 15 min. of fame ..

[PathofTotality]

Great post Mr. Kaplan!!

I really never watched cable/satallite news much less local news as it usually irritated me just for the reasons you mention. As for the shows like Entertainment Tonight, they were OK in the beginning as something different and maybe a break from the mundane but that has ended also. I agree with a few of the other posts that the BBC is about the only thing that I would call real news or journalism with moments of glory by CNN (emphasis on moments). I have often wondered, "Where does one go for the truth"? If not the truth then how about basic and verified facts or data. Given those two things, I can at least form a intellectual decision.

[daddysboy]

Thanks for keeping what's really important in mind and for sharing that with all of us. I thought this line says it all; "The Halliburtons and Blackwaters who are richly profiting from tragedy are betting that the nutter debate about the Mayan calendar's prediction of a 2012 apocalypse will displace a sober debate about apocalypse now.". Important things just aren't sensational in America anymore. What's strange is that our major media outlets haven't figured out that once you have switched to an all-crack diet, you are on it forever. There could not possibly by anything meaningful that can replace the empty, soulless gratification that is living vicariously through celebrated people. I thought for sure that the few media icons that seem to get these things like Jon Stewart or Racheal Maddow or Bill Maher or Ariana Huffington would eventually have carved out a niche large enough for people to see the rationality there, but it doesn't look like it will ever reach that level of critical-mass. Our culture appears to be on the fast track to oblivion.

[inthedesert]

I dumped my satellite service over a year ago and sold my big flat screen TV to a neighbor. And, I am so much happier now that I don't spend 2 or 3 hours listening to the cable news stations blast their silliness out to the world. I have a smaller flat screen hooked up to a DVD player and I watch movies on that. I can get all the news I could ever need on the internet every day. I have decided that spending several hours in the evening reading a book is much more soothing to my psyche than listening to a bunch of pseudo-int­ellectuals with axes to grind on cable.

[Lechuguilla]

Our household fired cable television several years ago. With the move away from analog, we no longer have access to any tv. We do have an old portable upstairs in the game room that's hooked to a VCR for those who wish to watch taped movies.

Living in Dallas, I couldn't tell you who the local tv "news" anchors are. I have never watched "Showbiz Tonight". I've never seen the John Stewart show (is that his name?). If they were in a lineup I could not pick out "Tony Romo", "Jessica Simpson", or "Nancy Grace". I have no idea what Sarah Palin's voice sounds like. I've never heard it.

Do you think, therefore, that I feel disconnected from events? Far from it. Getting rid of the boob tube was the best thing we ever did. We have the internet. We have phones, neighbors, friends, work associates ... there's no real news we would not be aware of, within minutes of it happening.

I find it endlessly fascinating that people who are otherwise quite intelligent just can't seem to cure their addiction to television. From personal experience, I can tell you that ditching the boob tube brings rewards you can't possibly imagine.

[SeaBlood]

I used to think that the situation you described merely indicated that America had become lazy and effete, and that our culture was basically doomed, much like we say when we ponder Ancient Rome's "Bread and Circuses" extravaganzas, designed to keep the proletariat placid--and less interested in rioting. But this is not limited to the USA-----Have you ever seen British tv, or Japanese, or Italian? I have! But not for more than 60 seconds, because that's all I could stand. I don't know anything about Polish TV or German TV or Indonesian TV, But I'm sure if it were good we would have heard about it. In short, it may not be American Culture that's coming to an end----just the entire planet! Except for Canada; their tv shows are actually quite good.

[Jimboy17]

You must be joking about Canadian TV, right? It's terrible. I live here, I know. The BBC has put out some decent shows over the years, and in the US, I have been impressed with the occasional HBO series. I got rid of cable two years ago, and then basic service followed. Don't miss it at all.

[SeaBlood]

Actually it WAS a half joke! I thought the juxtaposition between Canada and the rest of the planet sounded funny. But I wasn't totally kidding. I live on the Canadian border so I can watch their tv sometimes. If able, I watch their world news programs instead of US networks. I haven't watched this week, so I don't know if "Baloon Boy" was the big story it was here in the states, but I kinda doubt it. But, I must add that I don't watch many tv series, no matter which nationality. I like only documentaries.

[Shirley Fisk]

10/19/09
7:21pm
Alexandria, VA

Hi Marty,

Maybe it's just me but I think I should be paid if I have to learn the names of the so-called "groups" which supposedly want to annihilate us.
I am not interested in what the media says about the "groups" because I suspect they are wrong about everything. If I were working for DoD or some other government organization which gets briefings--then I'd pay attention. As it is, I don't.
(Remember the Iraq War? I really thought Iraq had WMDs. I'm embarrassed now.)

[Jimboy17]

It is important to develop critical faculties that help you decode and dissect the messages in the media. You gain these by questioning everything that is thrown at you, from different perspectives. If you start with the premise that every medium in our society is being used to sell you something, then you begin to be able to question about the what and the how of that process. People are far too trusting of the bill of goods being sold them, and this usually because they are too tired, to busy, and too concerned with consumption to think about it. But it doesn't have to be that way. A little study on media criticism should help launch a newfound ability to really probe into the content of the day's stories, to see what has been included, and what has been excluded, and for what reasons. In the end, one doesn't get paid for this, it is rather the duty of every citizen in a democracy. Who was it that said "vigilance is the eternal price of freedom"?

You might start with reviewing the case for WMD in the Iraq war, and what it was about the footage and presentation at the time that made it believable for you. Was it something in your own ideology? Was it a belief in the presidency? Was it the manner in which the information was presented? Good luck, and have fun with it!

[Shirley Fisk]

10/20/09
12:25pm
Alexandria, VA

I know why I believed that there were WMDs in Iraq--I am a former US Army employee who didn't believe that Colin Powell would intentionally mislead the public (I'm not saying that he actually did so--I don't know what he knew.)
Furthermore, I believed that our people would merely relieve Iraq of the WMDs and depart. Where did I get that idea?

Now that President Obama is contemplating the future of our involvement in Afghanistan I prefer to just ignore the entire subject. One thing I do remember from my time working for the military--if we don't "need to know" they aren't going to tell us the facts.

[SonofLiberty1]

Watching The Today Show for many years, I've come to the conclusion that at least recently, their "news"
much of it...is "FLUFF"

And so much for 24 hour news....

[Detectiv]

They should charge the family for wasting police time, then give them the bill for the cost of deploying all the emergency services.

The more people see that there's a huge $$ cost to these sort of shenannigans, and it gets charged to the idiots who indulge in them, the fewer there'll be.

In Europe and New Zealand, if you do something stupid, like go skiiing off-piste or sail without the proper equipment, and get into trouble, they'll rescue you, and give you the bill for the helicopter and crew time. It's the simplest and most effective disincentive to do stupid activities.

Why should the local taxpayers foot the bill?

[BobHiggins]

Marty,
I wish I were a much younger man and could study the crafts of writing and journalism under you.
Alas, I'm older than dirt, but if we ever cross paths, the beers are on me.
I love .. and greatly respect your work.
Bob

[Marty Kaplan - Huffpost Blogger]

Love hearing from you, Bob. Hope all's as well as it can be, from a guy who's not so far himself from being as old as dirt.
Marty

[SILVANUS]

Balloon man has all the sex appeal of a WalMart in Colorado.

[tb92]

True. My first thought was that I could use his picture as a target for darts, but then I realized that a voodoo doll would be more useful.

[halfitaliangirl]

In the old days, I'm 55, news was news and entertainment -- yes, I was there for the very first episode of Entertianment Tonight -- was entertainment. Now the only safe place to go for total news is the BBC. I will never understand why Jon & Kate are news or why the Balloon Boy, OctoMom or Levi Johnson are entertainment.

I want to know about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, South Korea and all the other countries in the world. I am tired of local news, simple house fires, police chases and petty crimes being the topic of network nightly news. Have we become such a society of busy-bodies and/or rubber-neckers that we need to hear one more random neighbor of any crime victim or criminal on the eveing news stating, "I always thought he was weird" or "I never liked him anyway?"

I want REAL news, leave the funny or strange stuff for Jeannie Most.

Finally, I saw something last week on HuffPost about Ted Turner wanting to regain control of CNN, and presummably HLN. Ted, if you are listening, DO IT NOW!

[RButler]

When you wrote about local news, I was reminded of when I lived in the San Fernando Valley and read the LA Times everyday and watched the local LA news channels. Then one day, I realized, that a car accident 30, 40 or 50 miles away in the greater LA area had no significance for me along with so much of their 'local' news which included hundreds of square miles of urban landscape. I went through a little withdrawal as I had been suckered in slowly over time by I'm over it.

Now, the problem is, when watching cable channels, everything is national news. A fire in downtown Chicago is on CNN, Fox and MSNBC live. Who cares? Same with car chases and other 'local' stories.

Real national news gets too little time and attention.

[Shirley Fisk]

10/19/09
5:35pm
Alexandria, VA

I second that motion for Ted to buy back CNN.

[Bobotheclown]

We all remember the real news but you act as if you don't know why it went away. It was not an act of God or the vagaries of the free market. It was a series of laws passed since 1980 designed to make real news go away. (The repeal of: Fairness Doctrine, Public service news as a condition of receiving a broadcasting license, and the ban on monopoly ownership of local stations within a market.) Now that the news is gone I do not hear anyone clamboring for real news to come back. If the voters want to be informed again they will simply insist that their elected representatives repeal the laws that prohibit real news from existing. Real news is only important in a secular society that uses it for rational decision making. If the people have decided that faith based obediance to authority is the way to go, why are you complaining?

[halfitaliangirl]

Real news went away because of ratings. You can't have them if you don't sensationalize things. The nightly news is a dinosaur from the past. I for one want that dinosaur back. Real news for real people who care about the real world. That is not complaining BobotheClown!

P.S. In spite of what you say, they are still supposed to be there for the pubic service.

[Economike]

Moose meat huh? tell me more *sarcasm*

[fpie]

I thought Jessica Simpson was Bart's big sister. Bart would have made a great baloon boy but he would have come up with a really solid excuse for the whole mess.
As far as Afghanistan goes, Obama needs to internalize that Bush's crazy ideas can be dropped like the hopeless hot potatos they are. Wingnuts will squeal for a couple of weeks and it will all fade into the ether. Afghanistan has been a lost cause for a thousand years or more. The best we can do (if we want to 'do the right thing') is throw money at it in the form of school, hospital and road building after which slip out the back door as quietly as possible while quietly declaring victory. Imagine if LBJ had the sense to do that in Vietnam. What a different world we would live in today.
Mr. President: No good deed goes unpunished. Nor should it.

[Bongborg]

For some reason or other when all this began, that was what popped into my head. That was a Bart Simpson episode.