The balloon boy coverage sums up network news

The three hour escapade that American TV audiences were put through yesterday as the race was on to locate a boy and a helium balloon may be symptomatic of the coverage of 24 hour news.

Judith Ellis writes that

today I'm watching CNN and they have wall-to-wall coverage of the kid who it was believed had gotten into a balloon and was flying hundreds of feet off the ground in an invention that his dad had created. For two hours, CNN followed the silver balloon in the air and called on experts who spoke on the possibility of the direction of the balloon and where the kid might have been hiding. It was high drama. CNN created all kinds of scenarios. Finally, the balloon landed and there was no child. Oh, my! Now, this bit of drama added more speculation and scenarios, calling on many experts who talked about heat technology to identify the boy. It was getting dark. Where was the basket? Where had it dropped? Thank God for Google Earth! What other kind of technology will be needed to locate the boy?