KEY POINTS:
Let's make up a lie, shall we? Something meaty like Te Terrorist Nanas.
Better yet, let's say someone notices that Helen Clark has stopped wearing her trademark Labour Red lipstick lately - nay, Chinese Red lipstick - and it's mentioned that way in the press.
Perhaps this is
an oh-so-subtle sign that our Prime Minister does indeed care more about Tibetans than trade.
A better PR move than Muldoon in Rocky Horror, more agile than Lange at Oxford, as nuanced as Winston Peters neckties, writes a slightly confused Sheryl of Howick the next day in a letter to the editor.
Defensible, sneaky, a lesson in how the mosquito deals with the lion, declare the chattering classes.
Angela Merkel and US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi decide to take her lead, choosing to sport equally subtle lip shades of peach and mauve, respectively, and the world press loves it. Great angle, human interest to an ageing story [in news time] and suddenly lipstick colour as political protest is the story du jour.
The Body Shop comes out with a new Tibetan Tan shade. Reporters Without Borders unfurl a giant maroon kiss symbol from the Eiffel Tower. The footage gets more Youtube hits than that dweeby kid singing Chocolate Rain.
What if none of it started that way?
As luck would have it, Helen's favourite red lipstick just happened to fall into the loo one morning, like a Tibetan butter candle in the wind. Go figure. Gives a whole new meaning to Chinese whispers now, doesn't it?
Though this little lippy challenge is fictional, who's to blame here for the resulting tidal wave? Nobody intended to generate lies, but in the end fiction becomes fact.
You read this newspaper and think you're standing on solid ground. But surf's up Gidget - you are riding on the crest of a wave that is only half water-powered and half foam.
You're no sucker. You read the news with a critical eye. But no matter how sceptical you fancy yourself, few of us ever notice the sheer force of the news media's wave in the moment.
The classic example is Bush's weapons of mass destruction that turned into a giant Easter egg hunt for the Tooth Fairy. Or consider America's potential invasion of Iran that heats up in the press just when it's most convenient to be used as twisted diplomacy.
Analysts will argue from here until tomorrow whether it began as intentional lies or genuine perceived truth at the time. Ultimately, it's impossible to gauge where fact stops and spin begins, because the two start melding together to produce an entirely different unruly beast.
The huge force of politically manipulated news is daunting and powerful enough. But what frightens me more is when the media itself creates the lie. The push to publish generates real whoppers simply because it doesn't yet know the truth.
Remember the story of Pakistan's cricket coach, Englishman Bob Woolmer, who was found in his blood and vomit-splattered hotel room in Jamaica, according to news reports?
His death was first called suspicious, and purported to show signs of a struggle. But when a Deputy Police Commissioner commented that because Woolmer was a big man, it might have taken more than one person to subdue him and that he may have known his attacker, papers went into a feeding frenzy worldwide.
A BBC investigation later concluded, ... it now seems certain the ex-England player was rendered helpless before being strangled, then declared that he was also poisoned.
There was talk of possible match fixing about to be revealed in a book, questions of suicide, even a death Fatwa.
But the real finality was an enlarged heart, diabetes, high blood pressure, respiratory problems, and a bottle of Champagne. He died of natural causes.
Kate and Gerry McCann are still living it. The press has in turn excoriated them as sinister murderers of their own daughter, Madeleine, and beknighted them as saintly victims.
The news stops for no man, and certainly not always for the truth or simply the time to find it.
Today's hungrier 24-hour news channels and websites eat up stories fastest that appear to have movement. That artificially created momentum not only cheats us, but also does something much more dangerous; it starts to manufacture its own truth.
Like just what shade of lipstick Helen Clark really will be wearing when she signs the free trade agreement with China in a week's time. Now I'm curious.
* www.traceybarnett.co.nz
