The lengths that the media will go to when they find a story that they love. A guy on a San Diego freeway has an out-of-control Toyota Prius with a stuck gas pedal and lives are in danger, and the world is about to end! Cue the live choppers, the news crews and call the networks. They all fell faster than their own stock prices for this ruse. Why? Because they wanted the story to be true.
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This James Sikes guy was not hard to figure out from the start. When I heard he called 911 while supposedly driving 90 mph down the freeway, I knew this was a fraud. Who does that? Seriously. Your car is out of control and instead of putting it in neutral or shutting it off, you call 911? Of course, it’s taken the media a week or so to finally figure out what most of us saw from the start, but what else is new? They’ve done it before, they’ll do it again and they’ll do it with many more important stories than this one.
In the days after this story things have come out about James Sikes and his financial troubles, but the media should’ve figured out this story long before this. Instead, Sikes became a media darling. He was everywhere. The morning shows loved this guy’s story and they did it with all the drama and fervor of the Balloon Boy over Ft. Collins. Wait a minute—didn’t the media tell us after they were fooled by that story that they were going to be more careful next time? Oh well.
Listen, I’ve been in newsrooms countless times where a call comes in on a story similar to this and crews are sent in dozens of directions to cover it as it breaks, happens — and sometimes, doesn’t really happen. In the rush to be first stuff is just put on air without checking. The media excuses its actions by saying they had to get the story before anybody else, and besides—in a 24-hour news cycle, who has time to bother with all that nasty checking out the facts stuff?
James Sikes and others are wise to this news business. Average Joes out there have figured out that it’s pretty easy to trick the media nowadays. They know the stories the media loves to cover and they just do those. The media hates Toyota these days, so Sikes might have known he had a winner on his hands with the gullible media. If Sikes owned a Ford F-150 nobody would know who he is, except for those trying to collect his debts.
If the media covers extensively how they were faked by Sikes, I’ll be a bit surprised. If they do, they will try to destroy him to make themselves look better, or something like that. They will certainly not give it the same attention they gave the story on Day One, but bottom line: they should’ve spotted this fraud early, the 911 call was enough for me. Stay tuned, there will be other Balloon Boys and out of control Prius’ to come. The viewers know how to use the media, it aint hard to figure out.
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