Oooops!

You've probably heard about how all hell broke loose in Boston today. Weird electronic devices were found all over the city and caused authorities to close highways, reroute traffic, and even shut down part of the Charles River for a time. The bomb squad went into action and destroyed one of the devices.

Turns out they needn't have bothered. It was all an unorthodox marketing campaign (I'd call it guerilla marketing, but that might inflame matters again) for Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I can see how this could be a problem for people who don't watch the Cartoon Network. I'm just glad that they didn't have these things in Chicago to cause all that trouble here. Oh, wait--they did. And in eight other cities, as well. And they've been here for two or three weeks. I wonder how much of the anger of Boston officials is a result of the trouble these devices caused and the embarrassment they feel for overreacting.

But what's most intriguing about this story for me is a little detail I've noticed in some of the coverage. The parent company of the Cartoon Network is Turner Broadcasting, and pretty much everybody's pointed that out. But Turner Broadcasting's parent company is Time Warner, and that seems to be left out of a number of stories. The AP story I linked to above mentions Time Warner (and that's the story that's overwhelmingly on Google News, at least when I looked at it), but stories from ABC, from CNN (also a Turner Broadcasting company, by the way--a detail they don't neglect in their coverage), and even The Boston Globe leave it out. While it's not the most important detail in the story, it does seem like something people might be interested to know. Officials in Boston and Massachusetts are looking for scapegoats, and they've already arrested a freelance artist, although CNN reports that authorities believe he was "in the employ of other individuals"--yeah, your bosses. If Boston authorities are looking for scapegoats, why should Turner Broadcasting hang alone?