It used to happen regularly. Somewhere – often in a rural area that never made news – a kid would fall into a well. Maybe his father had left it uncovered, or he was playing around at a construction site, or he chased his pet [fill in name of animal] down a hole.

And he got stuck.

Somebody sounded the alarm, and son-of-a-gun if that didn’t bring out the radio reporters, and in a later day, TV-news cameras, and the media breathlessly followed rescue efforts, playing the drama for what it was worth. Meanwhile, editors and news directors hoped it wouldn’t go on so long that the kid would die down there – that’s a downer of a story – or so long that the audience would lose interest.

By the time the newsreel cameras showed up, there was the hope for that golden moment when some brave fireman or country sheriff or state police officer would deliver the shivering child into his mother’s arms, and there would be the crying, the hugging, and the usual hug with gratitude written all over Mom’s face.

Mind you, while he was down there, the kid was in real danger. The walls of the uncompleted well might collapse. Or he could suffer shock. There might be a rainstorm and an infusion of water. The drama was real.

So – Was the Tram stranding Roosevelt Island’s boy-caught-in-the-well story?

There seemed little question that local media wanted to play it that way. The WIRE recorded and reviewed a good deal of the television coverage, and it seemed the reporters were reluctant to include, in their back-and-forths, the simple fact that there was no danger of either cabin falling. Information coming via cell phone made it clear no passenger was in any imminent medical danger. And to those familiar with the rescue rehearsals carried out by FDNY and Island personnel, there was no question that everyone up there would survive this incident.

We would not want to minimize the discomfort, nor the distress. Passengers reported that they were information-starved and got most of their information about their situation from relatives watching TV and passing the word via cell phone. But there was no corollary to the child trapped in a well here.

It just made a better story if there were the illusion of genuine jeopardy, and a story that could end with heroes coming to the rescue.

We’re grateful for the attention. But we have to wish modern media (TV in particular) would pay more attention to the long-term nature of Roosevelt Island’s problems. At the hearing, some residents said it: The Tram situation was a symptom of something much bigger worth media attention. Alas, there’s no kid in dramatic danger, and perverse politics doesn’t play well on the tube.

DL