What’s Really Important

On Oct. 15, 2009, the nation stood still as a weather balloon drifted across Colorado, ostensibly with a six-year-old boy trapped inside.

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel blew out regularly scheduled programming to carry the story live — in some cases, not even airing commercials.

The video of the silvery mass wafting through the air with a potential stowaway captivated the public, who sat glued to their televisions waiting for the outcome. It was a ratings boon! The event caused CNN to double its average daytime ratings, while Fox Newschannel averaged 2.4 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Company. In all, more than three million people watched the event on the big three cable networks alone — and millions more on local news stations throughout the country.

All for a hoax.

What does this say about our priorities?

Oh sure, we can blame it on the misguided antics of some publicity-happy parents who’ll do anything for 15-minutes of fame, or the news networks, which have 24-hours of air-time to fill each day.

But the real problem is us. We have no conception about what’s important anymore.

My fellow journalists have argued that the Balloon Boy story, as it’s now known in news circles, was a legitimate human-interest story that rightfully captivated the nation with its drama.

To which I say: hogwash.

If we have six hours to gawk at a “legitimate human-interest story”, there are countless others more worthy of our attention; if the clincher is that the story in question involved a child in danger or in need, we have scads more of those, too.

How about a few profiles on foster kids who need to be adopted? Or the children without health insurance who are flooding emergency rooms with the flu? Heck, that weather balloon probably flew smack over the house of the four-month-old Colorado baby who was denied health insurance because he’s “obese” (he’s exclusively breastfed and in the 99th percentile for height and weight but the insurance company won’t insure babies over the 95th percentile) — what about a story on that?

The problem is, news outlets know that we don’t want to immerse ourselves in honest-to-goodness human-interest stories — stories that actually have the power to change our behavior, our society, our lives.

Why?

My hunch is that we believe those stories are too complicated, too overwhelming, too real to spark anything but hand wringing over our inability to do much of anything about them.

But that’s where we’re wrong.

If we concentrate on what’s really important, instead of allowing ourselves to be titillated by things like silver balloons and breathless talking heads, we would be able to make some serious change in this world.

Yes, the number of foster children who need adoptive homes is staggering. Yes, the health care dilemma is mind-boggling. Yes, life and all of its intricacies are …well…intricate. But we’re smart. We’re strong. And, when we allow ourselves the opportunity, we’re compassionate. We can do great things if we give ourselves half a chance.

Of course, that would mean turning off Balloon Boy and the reality shows that inspired him. It would mean taking stock of what’s really important in our lives and in the world around us and focusing on that — then doing something about it.

That something doesn’t have to big; every journey begins with one small step. You may think little gestures are insignificant in the grand scheme of everything, but as Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it.”

Imagine what the country —what the world— would be like if a fraction of us did just that? To quote Gandhi again, “You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result.”

Personally, I think the results would be so ridiculously astounding in their unexpectedness that the networks couldn’t help but cover the real-life “human-interest story” we’d generate.

You can bet the outcome would affect more than one child — and it sure as heck wouldn’t be a hoax.

The question is: are we willing to do it?