Inside Cable News 2.0 ponders the question as to why Fox Business Network broke away from business news to show coverage of the Colorado balloon boy.
ICN 2.0 writes, “In the last hour of the market day when trading is going on FBN’s business viewers get to watch video of a hot air balloon flying across Colorado. I only bothered to check the network after the balloon landed just to make sure it was covering business news. It wasn’t. Brilliant. If CNBC did it too they deserve the same amount of scorn but I have not been able to verify yet that CNBC did or didn’t cover it.
“Business networks are there to cover business news. What’s a flying balloon with a 6 year old boy supposedly inside got to do with NASDAQ? Or the Dow? Oil Futures? Are mylar producers going to take a hit if the boy was ever actually inside (which as of this writing we’re still not sure)? Is that your business tie in to this sensational live video pandering?
“This isn’t the first time FBN has held up doing what’s it’s supposed to be doing for something it’s not supposed to be doing. It interrupted its business newscast to talk about Michael Jackson’s autopsy results.”
Read more here.
[...] ICN 2.0 writes, “In the last hour of the market day when trading is going on FBN’s business viewers get to watch video of a hot air balloon flying across Colorado. I only bothered to check the network after the balloon landed just to make sure it was covering business news. It wasn’t. Brilliant. If CNBC did it too they deserve the Source: Talking Biz News RSS Feed [...]
I understand you are quoting ICN 2.0 as not able to verify whether or not CNBC covered the balloon story. However, on Oct. 16, a day before this post was published, Allen Wastler, Managing Editor for CNBC wrote Balloon Boy: Not Your Average Business Story.
Wastler addresses the issue of whether or not to cover the story in question.