Dead Tree Alert: Balloon Dad's Reality Fantasy

My column in this week’s print TIME is the last word on the Balloon Boy saga—”last word” in the sense that I’m pretty sure every other person in America has weighed in on the subject by now. I look at Richard Heene’s reported fixation on getting a reality show and the culture of TV fame [...]

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Balloon Boy on Larry King: "We Did It for the Show"

For a few horrifying hours yesterday, TV news and its audience thought they might be witnessing the death of a child in real time. Instead, it turned out we were literally distracted by a shiny object. The silvery experimental balloon hurtling through the air over Colorado did not, it turned out, hold six-year-old Falcon Heene; [...]