I’m having a conversation (e-mail) with an old news pro, a guy who has been around the block more than a few times. The topic is Manny Ramirez, an odd creature formerly playing left field for the Boston Red Sox and now doing the same job for the Dodgers. He has been suspended for 50 games for testing positive for … something. I stopped reading the story before it reached that point. I just didn’t care what he had tested positive for.

Then an e-mail from the old news pro just happened to show up: “Are we all tired of Manny Ramirez? I am.”

He’d struck a nerve and I wrote back: Funny you should ask if I’m tired of Manny Ramirez. Yes, I am. I’m tired of A-Rod, too. I’m tired of the repetition, the 24/7 news cycle that demands news whether it’s there or not, the endless analysis and all the rest that comes with what we call “news” today. But I sure don’t know what to do about it. Any suggestions?

He had one:

“We need an automatic television editor. You punch in “Manny Ramirez”, and the minute the words “Manny Ramirez” are spoken by the announcer, the television switches channels to the nearest Yogi Bear cartoon, Clint Eastwood movie or whatever you program it to do. I choose Yogi Bear because he is slightly more relevant than Manny Ramirez.”

Are the two of us jaded? Worn out? I don’t know. But it does seem to me that an awful lot of what passes for news isn’t. It’s not so much the Manny story itself that ran today that bothers me. That’s a legitimate news story. What I have in mind is the next 72 hours of non-stop analysis that surely will follow today’s story.

Then of course there’s the perpetual A-Rod saga and … Oh, let’s not go there.