Dialogue: News junkie's eight steps to sanity

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

Another brilliant news night as Jenny (believe it or not) Ripley, a former Minister of National Distraction, took the lid off a scandal alleging the Army has ambitions to become as influential as the military in Indonesia and Fiji, and had hoodwinked the Primed Minister, Helen Sparks, a woman more equal than her peers.

Sparks scoffed - I say, scoffed - at the idea and adroitly redirected fire towards Crikey Dickens, head of a defence think-tank (not one with a big gun sticking out the front).

Then came news of a few murder investigations and trials, plus Australian military pirates hijacking a Norwegian ship with hundreds of hungry, would-be asylum-seekers aboard. You wonder how a country that plays rugby so cleverly could have such a stupid Government.

But a vintage night it was for your media lush, your news junkie. My palms were sweating, my mouth was as dry as a Nelson lake and my neck muscles as tight as kids at a school ball. I was euphoric after the long period of unhappy equanimity that had prevailed since the Rankin circus.

There I was with the newspaper on my knee, a magazine in my hand, a dictionary of world events on the arm of the chair, facing TV, and with the radio on in the hall for when I had to go to the lav. No way could I miss even a whiff of political scandal.

Later, before I turned in, I had cup of cocoa and a squizz at the New York Times on the internet ...

I was badly hung over the next morning and stayed in bed, eyes slightly out of focus, mouth as tacky with old facts and figures as a newsroom floor, wondering how I would get through the day without knowing what happened as soon as it did, what news analysts thought was the true cause and what ramifications would flow from it.

Management said I was overdosing as I asked her excitedly whether she thought the rush of dire events would lead to the Apocalypse at last, as the analysts ominously implied, short of tapping the sides of their noses?

"You need counselling," said Management.

"Of course! Of course!" I said.

"Or maybe Ritalin."

"Don't spoil it ... "

"You have to relearn that modern communication isn't supposed to tell you anything. It's an end in itself," said the counsellor, an easy-mannered man, standing beside his desk wrapping his right hand over his left and around the shaft of a putter.

"There's no sanity, no release from the tyranny of populist politics through the modern media without accepting these things. Politicians create dozens of small tensions and then show how clever they are by solving them, thus distracting the rest of us from central problems, like poverty and ignorance, which are far too hard for the mediocre politicians and bureaucrats that democracies throw up. And I use the term 'throw up' advisedly."

He spread his feet and addressed a golf ball on the carpet.

"For example, a bunch of drunken women rugby players recently dumped rubbish into the street and generally behaved in a loutish and disgusting manner in Ngaruawahia. When this was drawn to the attention of the Royal New Zealand Navy, a spokesman, Lieutenant-Commander Ant Carter, said: 'If they find this to be true, then we would find that totally unacceptable and we would take appropriate action.'

"That's statement of the perfect bureaucrat. The best we can hope for is he's not actually in charge of the torpedoes or depth charges or, worse, writes the instruction manuals.

"Once you understand this you can ignore it all as I do. I have a credo here that I recite to myself whenever I start to feel politicians are real and the news and current affairs they create reality."

The counsellor swung gently, sent the ball gliding into a paper cup lying on its side, handed me a credo card and a bill for $500, and said, "Good afternoon". The card, headed Eight Steps to Sanity in a News-Loud World, read:

(1) Credibility is style not substance, is being believed, not telling the truth.

(2) Sincerity is a state of political nirvana achieved by learning to believe your own lies.

(3) A debate is a game with winners and losers that has nothing to do with the truth.

(4) Political argument is a kind of defecation after a rapid chomping up of the facts, a motion is passed and the House hopes no one will notice the smell.

(5) A government's first duty is to stay in power and, of course, that's the one duty that dispenses with all others. Pragmatists agree on that.

(6) Being a pragmatist is talking from the side of your mouth and leaving your thoughts unclouded by imagination.

(7) Achievers are those who've made enough money to stop working and take up talking.

(8) He who preaches the work ethic usually practises the leisure ethic.

That night I read three chapters of a novel and slept the sleep of the wise.