Book Review : Taking the News Industry in an Absurdly Comic Vein

Crown Oklahoma by Jim Lehrer (Putnam: $18.95; 223 pages)

Those of us who watch the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” are used to taking the news of the day seriously. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t watch the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour!” It’s strange, in this world, that while we often can’t take the President seriously, or political campaigns, or yet another set of murders more gross than the last, or the Middle East, or NATO, or the Stealth, seriously, still, the news itself, and the concept of the news, remains, at some level, absolutely sacred. (No one has ever said out loud, for instance, that Ted Koppel looks supremely silly. No one would dare, because he is Ted Koppel.)

And so, if the “News” is to be spoofed (not “exposed”--that would be permissible, because the expose-thrust is serious to the hilt), it must be from the inside. Jim Lehrer has taken the whole solemn concept of the news, and tickled it, poked it in the ribs, jabbed and punched it into giggling submission. “Crown Oklahoma” is a darling book, and Jim Lehrer, under his preoccupied frown of the White Protestant news-mogul must be a terminally Big Silly.

Sweet Underachiever

“Crown Oklahoma” marks the return of One-Eyed Mack, a sweet underachiever who has found his perfect vocation in being the lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, a job that pays about $9,000 a year, but also earns Mack prominent recognition at openings of mini-malls and the like. (Mack’s wife, Jackie, is opening a string of drive-through convenience stores called Jackie-Marts, and Mack is her strenuous supporter.) Mack also has a son who’s struggling with a baseball obsession: He loves the game, but plays so poorly in the city’s intramural leagues that he’s earned the unloved but appropriate moniker, Trash.

But personal life is as nothing in the ongoing news, as Mack finds out one sultry summer night. His ongoing assignment for the state of Oklahoma is to watch the nightly news to see if his home state is mentioned: “It was July and Walter Cronkite was gone. The sound of ticker machines came up and a deep man’s voice said, ‘This is the CBS Evening News with Roger Mudd substituting for the vacationing Walter Cronkite.’ ”

Governor in a Snit

The substituting Roger Mudd, on this particular night, chooses a hideously disconcerting lead story, read by a particularly unattractive reporter. A certain Archibald Tyler claims to have uncovered a “new Mafia” in the “hard-line narcotics trade.” This mob, led by a man named Boomer, is allegedly based in Oklahoma , which throws Mack, his wife, his son, the governor (whose sole obsession in life is to stick a dome on the state Capitol, and thus to “crown Oklahoma”) into a conniption.

Surely, this news can’t be true! And, of course, it isn’t. Archibald Tyler has made it all up in a fit of pique. (This tradition goes back in time to Mark Twain making up the news in the Western town of Virginia City, because it was too cold to go outside, and has been recently revisited by David Freeman in the film “Street Smart.”) But, just because this plot has been run through before takes nothing away, either from its relevance or its charm.

This murky state of affairs takes all of Mack’s wit and intelligence, as well as bushels of help from a loyal cadre of his Oklahoma family and friends to stop the berserk Archibald Tyler. False news, once announced, must somehow be made into reality, so that it can be exorcised. This eternal problem, though hilariously dealt with here, is both serious and criminal. Any nitwit in a tweed jacket and nice tie can make up anything at all. Once he’s reported it, that’s it ; it’s true, people believe it, live it, die from it.

Lehrer’s look at journalism’s cardinal sin is both traditional and fresh as a penny. I hate to say it, but I have to: In his hands, “Everything old is news again.”