Speed Melted the News, and Me   

With virtual events, we had to get to virtual news.

My addiction is news, and I used to be proud of it. Or at least I thought it was stylish and smart. Not any more. I need help to beat this thing.

It seemed to make sense for a journalist. Our job was to be informed so we could help inform others. Thus the more news we could ingest the better. We admitted with a bit of self-deprecation--but actually puffed up inside--that we were news junkies. We even used the word "junkies."

The first rule of the evening paper's city editor: Before coming to work we should read the whole morning paper, or else. Second rule: We should be sure to read all of our own paper by the end of the day.

Later, catching the IRT for work at the AP in New York, I knew I'd do better work if I'd thoroughly read the Times, and maybe also the Herald Tribune and one or two others. If, kapow, I had to go interview the prime minister of Malaya, I'd know who that was, and where it was.

Now, of course, many journalists do read three or four papers a day--I mean papers that have news. And they watch TV news.

Tells you what some of the customers out there are seeing. Gives you some news in a nutshell. Some of it is very good, not usually as good as the journalists presenting it, but good, and admirably paced: alert, quick. (Of course, if that's all you know, you don't know much.)

Tonight I will hover over the cable news channels, awaiting the primary returns from... Delaware. I will jump channels every minute or so, and back again, but I'll be sticking to the hot cable channels.

Gotta see the bullet news, and get the skinny from those smart guys Matthews, O'Reilly, Hannity, Colmes, Geraldo, Hume and Russert, the purveyors of news hype and staccato feelings and impressions.

I'll watch. I can't help it. I'll do it again next week when South Carolina takes center stage. I'll be there, clicking.

Will I learn anything? No.

But yes, I'll see how our bizarre brew of faux journalism with candidates, spinmeisters, expectations, former expectations, reliable observers, occasionally reliable observers, formerly reliable observers, media consultants, campaign contributors, hype, anti-hype hype and the bit players called voters...I'll see how all of that's playing out. And I'll think it's real. And it may be.

Help me before I watch again.

An intervention. If you can just sit me down, make me get into the 28-day treatment, deprive me of the fermented pizzazz, limit my diet to actual events, allow me to consume only real news until my metabolism adjusts.

My brain will not be constantly befuddled. I will see more clearly.

We'll have to stick together on this, mutually supportive, like Friends of Bill.

Are you a friend of Geraldo's? Give me a call when you're tempted, and we'll talk. I can run by your place any time. I'll drop off a pot of real news.

Meanwhile, stay away from that other stuff.