Too many journalists, not enough news.

THE SHARP POINT of a witty sally often wins an argument, even when the other side has the weight of facts and reasoning in its favour. This is probably unfair, because the funny man (or woman) trades shamelessly on our normal impatience and short attention span: "For God's sake, let's get this over--and with the bonus of a laugh, if possible." That's what we are often thinking, behind our mask of polite attention.

This principle--"lightsomeness will usually trump logic and longwindedness"--will be appreciated by, for example, anyone who has tried to read the works of America's New England sage Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82). I once attempted this test of stamina--so many years ago that I've forgotten why. I was saved by light shining from (of all people) the prophet of grim himself, Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick. Referring to Emerson's earnest prose mountain, Melville wrote that, had Emerson "lived in the days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions". Exit Emerson!

But when wit and reason stand united on the one side, then the funny man holds an unbeatable hand. Imre Salusinszky is one of my favourite stirrers, and I know that I am not the first to draw delighted attention to his recent summary of New South Wales constitutional history: the state, he said, was at that moment "celebrating 150 years of responsible government (or 140, if you count Bob Carr)". Onya, Imre!

Peter Ruehl, though an American, has long written for the Australian Financial Review; no doubt his wider perspective gives him a clearer view of our local absurdities. In what seemed no more than a throwaway aside, he said that one of Australia's problems was that we had "too many journalists and not enough news". So much sense in a mere seven words!

The dispiriting sensation that so often accompanies the arrival of a daily newspaper is not caused by dread of: "All that news--shall I be able to cope?" Our unease arises from: "All those words, and so little news hiding among them". Newspaper reading, on a bad day, resembles mining for uranium: all the dirt you have to dig up yields about 1 per cent that is precious.

Editorial cunning, allied to the combined black arts of layout and headline writing, manages to tart up each day's new issue so that it looks different from yesterday's. But try this: cut out and keep the news pages from seven successive issues of your regular daily; at the end of the week, run your eye over them again. You'll be lucky if your mental Geiger counter registers even one retrospective click.

In his autobiography, the late Donald Home described his own disbelieving horror when he realised that Sir Frank Packer had him editing a weekly journal that had no content at all. To be sure, each page was crowded with words and pictures, but from cover to cover there was nothing that was important, interesting, entertaining or true. Yet people bought the rag, and Packer paid Home a good (if shameful) salary for being the editor.