Wasn't it bliss? When the Northern politicians declared a moratorium on their deliberations it was nearly safe, if only for a few days, to switch on the television or radio or pick up a newspaper without having to see, hear or read about the oft-rehearsed arguments about the peace process. No need to plough through acres of newsprint and tolerate torrents of speech on radio and television about the doings and the sayings of Messrs Trimble, Adams, Blair, Ahern, Paisley, Mallon, Hume, Taylor, McGuinness (x2), Ervine, McMichael and Auntie Mo Mowlan and all. And did we read, see or hear anything that we had not seen, heard or read before?
The politicians can at least contend that boredom is preferable to the bomb and the bullet. But what excuse can the commentators and columnists offer for their daily over-indulgence? No sooner is a meeting arranged than they congregate earnestly for the celebration of the Sacred Media Ritual. First they solemnly chant the Prelims. They regard it as sacrilegious simply to inform us what the meeting is about and where and when it is to be held.
It is their bounden duty to pontificate on the stances that might be taken by the participants, the disagreements, the obstacles, the eventual outcome and the price of the pint in the Press bar. Not content to give their own views they feel obliged to comment on and quote from the utterings of other columnists and commentators.
Satellite dishes
It is during the Prelims that the electronic media excels. Out come the mobile satellite dishes and phones. An unending array of politicians say their party pieces live (but rarely lively) to air. Experts, academics, columnists and reporters spread across half the known world are then invited to rattle on about what the politicians have said. A man walking his dog on a hillside two miles from where the Event is to be held is in real danger of being roped in and asked to join in the speculation.
The path having being sanctified by the Prelims, the Event can now take place. The participants take a vow of silence for the duration of the proceedings. But as these participants are politicians silence does not mean a lack of sound-bites.
A participant who has strayed from the Event in search of a lavatory is descended upon by the media horde and questioned until he screams, cross-legged, for relief. Another in search of a quiet place to smoke falls into a similar ambush before he has a chance to reach for the matches. Their disjointed revelations make the meat for the evening bulletins and the early editions. Enter again the experts, academics, commentators, columnists, etc. to dissect minutely every word and find deep, hidden meanings which, in all probability, are as far removed from reality as Ian Paisley is from an after-hours session in the Shamrock Bar. And so it goes on bulletin after bulletin, edition after edition until the Event comes to an end.
Aftermath
The final act of the Sacred Media Ritual is the Aftermath, which followeth quickly on the reading of the Joint Declaration. In the manner of Joint Declarations nothing of significance or note is said. This does not halt the galloping tribes of the Aftermath. Copy is filed by the ton. Phones cackle over the radio. Pieces to camera grind on relentlessly. To this traditional set piece the television broadcasters have added a refinement. A straightforward concise report is no longer deemed adequate.
Having delivered his piece, urbi et orbi, the reporter must now be interviewed by the studio anchor-person. This merely entails the reporter repeating the information he has already transmitted but this time in a question and answer format. Invariably he is also required to invite a journalist from another sector of the media to give a second opinion on the Event. This process indicates that the station thinks either that its reporter may have left something out or that it wants to get full value out of its satellite bookings and electronic news-gathering toys.
Meaningless words
Back in the studio every inane comment is given as holy writ. A few meaningless words from the British prime minister are accompanied by a bland still photograph of Mr Blair. Obviously someone in the control room has decided no-one has ever had the opportunity of setting eyes on the reclusive fellow before so the viewer needs to be shown what he looks like. Our old friends the experts, academics, etc. join the procession yet again. But the Aftermath must include a new element, the voice of the common people-known in the trade as the "vox pop". When nothing is left to be said some fools have to be found to say it. Cameras are dispatched to the streets to apprehend men, women and children who have no knowledge of nor interest in the Event. With microphones pressed against their cheekbones they are forced to deliver their views in accents that the viewer does not know. Incomprehension is piled upon incomprehension. As they say in the North: I blame the media.