WHO'LL GET the first sit-down with Misbah Rana? You might find something in the question - jargon, intent, or implication - disturbing. I might even agree with you. I'll guarantee, nevertheless, that certain newsdesks in certain of Scotland's cities are pondering the question very hard.

How much does a 12-year-old girl cost? There's a question to set the internet firewalls aflame. But if Misbah cannot be bagged for a seated "interview" - two dozen unguarded words would do it - here's how the process will unfold.

Every gullible parent of a Lewis "school friend" prepared to be bought will be bought. Every distant relation and neighbour with a fogged snap, every school professional, every lawyer, acquaintance, social worker and "expert", never mind the local press, will be purchased, if willing. A child will thereafter be procured, if available. Such is our fourth estate. And why?
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Partly to settle a strange kind of grievance. Scotland's complacent newsgatherers got this one wrong from the very start. Misbah, from what we glean, was neither snatched nor groomed for some sinister arranged marriage: hold the front page.

Disconcertingly, she appears to have made a few choices of her own. Alarmingly, she has stated that she would rather remain in Pakistan than in the Outer Hebrides. Clearly, our press now requires an explanation.

Misbah is to be returned to Scotland, according to a Pakistan court deferring to a prior Scottish judicial procedure. She is then to have her life and emotions picked over in open proceedings, for all to see and hear. The failed relationships and subsequent lives of her biological parents - try digesting that lot, if applicable - are to be discussed by all and sundry. Then, and only then, will she have "her say", with an august Scots advocate at her elbow.

I'm no expert. My limited parenting skills say that kids should never be found in such situations. My semi-adult knowledge reminds me, meantime, that the mess made by grown people tends to engulf children and imperil their identities.

It would have been better, I suspect, if Misbah/ Molly had not been caught in the coarse friction between two cultures. It would have been better still if her parents had haggled over their disputes far away from the cameras and the headlines. There it is, though: the child is a story. After 27 years in this game, I cannot imagine anything more horrible.

What's a story? What truly informs, explains, or by some chance educates? Here's a story: the failure of our news media to understand what matters in the world.

I'm practical, still. I picture a downtable jerk - more jargon: apologies - scanning the airline schedules and the wires tonight in an effort to work out when Misbah might arrive in London or Glasgow during the coming week. I don't blame the jerk: I once did the job myself. Yet if he or she fails to tell the desks when to dispatch a snapper to capture the image of a weeping child, or forgets to send a liberal arts graduate to scribble a few incoherent words, we'll call it a failure. We will not, obviously, call it "a service to our readers".

Misbah is 12, going on 13. If an idealised features desk wanted an idealised angle, that would be mine: youth on the eternal media altar. But what is that ploy, really, if not a weird reductionism? You could call it The Guardian excuse. Here's how (media students attend) this metropolitan thing works.

Obviously, they say, "we" would not exploit a child. But suppose the Daily Shithead is paying 20 grand for a life. We must, of course, make some twee, ironic comment on the "phenomenon" of media exploitation. Then we must, what with our civic duty and all, compose a head-shaking leader deploring the loss of innocence.

Then, says a bright spark in Farringdon Road, we must run a spread on heart-breaking images of lost innocence (female). Then, being responsible, we must remember to devote a paragraph to what's-her-name. Finally, a post-it will go to the picture desk: "Can't we get a snap of that Muslim Scottish kid in tears?"

Right. Misbah Rana has been through enough already, I think. Guesswork is denied, invariably, to anyone who has ever been a parent, but a parent who has knocked around the media is denied even the moral flutter. One part of me says: "Leave the kid alone." Another part suggests that if, on the other hand, Misbah needs a space in which to place "her point of view", what more honest, decent and truthful media outlet could she find than the one that pays my wages?

I wouldn't recommend it. If asked, I would counsel an avoidance of all media for Misbah and her family henceforth. Reporting, even honest reporting, distorts that which it purports to observe. But then, I am not to be trusted: I know too much about journalism.

Why would the "royal editor" of The News Of The World be facing two years inside come January? Why would the chancellor of the exchequer, arguably one of the most powerful men in the land, feel coerced into offering "a statement" on the well-being of his infant son? How did OJ Simpson wind up several million dollars to the good by pretending to explain how he might - just might - have slaughtered his wife?

You can explain several things about the corruption in public life by reference to the Murdoch empire. The old thug taints all he touches: that is (lawyers please note) both a matter of record and opinion. For his employees, however, a rich bully's attitudes become a habit of mind: hence the Tommy Sheridan controversy. We are not all like that - take a journalist's word for it - but we know, each of us, what goes on, and why it goes on.

What was Sheridan's supposed offence, after all? One unsubstantiated allegation of drugs use aside, the Screws alleged no actual crime. The claim of perjury has meanwhile come after the fact, like a plea in mitigation. The real charge against this socialist was one of "hypocrisy". Ponder that: The News Of The World is outraged by behaviour it deems hypocritical. I could offer my own dossier on the private lives of certain News International employees, but who would sink so low? One guess.

I don't much care about the royal family's right to privacy. They joined the game long ago when they presumed to imagine that they, too, could manipulate the media. When hacks begin routinely to hire private investigators, however, the better to bug private conversations, both lives and public discourse are at stake. We move beyond the distortion of facts - that now happens daily - to the distortion of reality itself. OJ's guilt or innocence, and the actual deaths of two actual people, become another reality show, and Gordon Brown's sorrow is turned into another soap opera.

Misbah should hold our attention for a good 10 minutes. That's a Warhol lifetime, these days. The girl herself becomes a caricature in the process. Suddenly she is mature, "self-possessed", and capable of taking the strain of media attention. The fiction is necessary if all the talking heads - this one, too, ironically enough - are to escape a charge of unspeakable cruelty. We do not need to know anything about her or her family. We demand to know, nevertheless.

Last week, minutes after the chancellor's "revelation", the news channels had hunted down families in similar situations, facing up to cystic fibrosis and prepared to talk about their "plight" just to keep a stray viewer viewing. Gordon and Sarah Brown did not invent a genetic deficit for those decent folk, but that was not the point. Suddenly there was a "story", and couples were conscripted, uncomplaining, to play their parts.

What's a story? Journalism depends, every minute of every day, on an answer to the question. We extol the "good tale" - Misbah will do, this week - and we overlook the whiff of artifice, the odour of fiction, the suspended disbelief and Chomsky's manufactured consent. Someone will get that sit-down with a hapless 12-year-old, one way or another. They won't rest until the job is done. We call it professionalism.

Then you will pore, agog, over every last detail. Then someone whose own hands are far from clean will deplore the whole business. That part, at least, isn't news.