Dialogue: Perfect people every bulletin

By ELIZABETH EASTHER

I don't know if you'll believe this, but in the past week I have heard from three separate sources that something funny is happening to our television news and to its assorted stars.

The theory springs from the phenomenal rate of breeding by TV presenters and journalists and, while some say it's because of something in the water at one network or another, others I've spoken to believe it's due to much more sinister goings on.

So here's the theory that's being bandied about, based on a simple enough premise and, perhaps, a little paranoia.

Who earns the most, even after substantial salary surgery? Who appears everywhere we go, on billboards, bus bums, women's magazine covers and the front pages of our papers? And who are the people who represent, if not physical perfection, something close to it?

Newscasters and TV presenters, that's who, and now that the cloning business has become such a hot topic, some citizens have put two and two together and come up with a more sinister figure than four.

The assertion is that the chosen ones have been taking part in an assisted breeding programme. Cloning, to be precise.

John Campbell, younger brother of the nation, has just had one; Carol Hirschfeld is set to do it again, as is Kate Hawkesby. Simon and Ali are on to number two, bless them, and Mike Hosking, for goodness sake, outdid them all by having two at once.

Apparently, it all began years ago when mother-of-the-nation Judy Bailey had the first TV pregnancy. She not only carried a child to term on Top Half, but practically went into labour before our eyes.

Coverage of huge news events such as the Gulf War and the death of Princess Diana proved to the genetic engineers that the television presenter/newscaster was the perfect specimen. They were recruited into the programme en masse. Or so I am told.

Personally, I'd just thought it was a millennial thing: baby boomers' babies having a boom of their own.

But why, then, have normally rational people from three unrelated areas of my life chosen to regale me with the idea that this new crop of news babies is anything other than a coincidence?

Adding credence to this conspiracy theory is the fact that cloning is big news and, while it's been rumoured that the practice has actually been carried out for decades, only recently has the information been selectively released. And by whom? The media.

We all know cloning is an expensive process, and only the mega-rich could afford it. And there's little point in duplicating the genetic codes of individuals who haven't had high levels of success - and there are few successes sweeter than public devotion and trust. It makes sense to reproduce from such a pool - and that nature's finest specimens enjoy the first fruits of cloning's labours.

Like droids, we watch them every night at 6 pm and most hours in between and through those bulletins they tell us what to think. These people are the faces of our civil emergencies, our charities; they even dictate our fashion, food tastes and fads.

Are the networks going head-to-head in a race to clone the highest number of personalities as an insurance policy against illness, tardiness or accidents? Perhaps to ease staff shortages over holidays? Can the disappearances of Judy and John be attributed to failures, small hiccups in the master plan? Is cloning the only way Holmes has been able to keep up with his dizzying schedule?

Impossible? Maybe. But in case it's more than rumour, I felt obliged to pass it on. I only hope you'd do the same.