Adam Whittington, the hero/bad-guy/patsy in 60 Minutes' disastrous Lebanon adventure, has urges "to help these kids", according to Sunday Night's glowing testimony from his wife.

And so of course do rival commercial current affair programs. These urges are somewhat less honourable, as we have learned many times over the years and as we have just witnessed once more.

For instance, a primary urge in TV land - or in that part of it subject to simmering hostilities between networks Nine and Seven - is the irresistible desire to give one's rival a decent poke in the eye with a stick whenever the chance arises. It's usually a very long stick, as it must be to reach down from the moral high ground on which the combatant holding the stick has plonked itself to tut-tut over the terrible sins of its rival.

The tone for these sermons is traditionally a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger reflection on journalistic sin, though inevitably this comes tinged with an undertone of "trying to keep a straight face" with shades of "you've got to to be kidding me" thrown in.