Vote split on Courier's decision to opt out of the political spin cycle

MATT Price got off the bus during the 2001 federal poll and set the tone of a debate that has reached a new level in Queensland.

THE late, great Matt Price got off the bus while covering the 2001 federal election and set the tone of a debate that reached a new level this week in Queensland: to what extent should the media be held hostage to the campaign dictates of political parties?

The Australian's much-missed political sketch writer decided to go his own way, reaping the rewards with some memorable dispatches from outside the bubble of the orchestrated campaigns of the major parties.

Brisbane daily The Courier-Mail has now gone a step further and abandoned the campaign bus altogether, pulling its journalists and photographers off the roadshows run by Premier Anna Bligh and Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman in the lead-up to the state election on March 24.

To some, it was a bold and principled move, one in the eye of the spin merchants who have turned election campaigns into an extended soundbite for the TV news.

Others, however, question the newspaper's motivations and whether it had let down its readers to pull a stunt of its own.

Courier-Mail editor Michael Crutcher said the decision wasn't made on a whim.

He was frustrated by the tactics of the parties before the campaign officially got under way on February 19, and gave both sides 10 days to lift their game.

They didn't, so he decided the newspaper would no longer be captive to "once-over-lightly election campaigning".

Reporters would continue to dig for their own stories, cover news conferences with the leaders when they could get to them, and The Courier-Mail put its own bus on the road so writer Trent Dalton could take the pulse of voters across the state, free of the intrusion of political handlers.

"I'm not saying we wouldn't go back on the bus, but we would want to break the rules (where) our journalists and photographers are held captive for five weeks, are not told where they're going, are not allowed time on the ground to talk to people and are not guaranteed one-on-one interviews," Crutcher said.

Gold Coast Bulletin editor Peter Gleeson describes the move as "courageous", but says he won't follow suit.

Both are in charge of News Limited titles, stablemates of this newspaper.

Gleeson insists he is comfortable with having a reporter following each leader full-time, as The Australian does.

"Our attitude is that you really need to be on the ground in that 24-7 grind to understand the issues and what's going on," Gleeson said.

Veteran Canberra press gallery journalist Malcolm Farr, national political editor for news.com.au, said Crutcher's "admirable" decision should be a wake-up call to political parties.

"Journalists and editors get sick of paying for expensive hotel rooms in a campaign and having no idea where they're going next . . . because the campaign thinks it's not in the candidate's interests," Farr said.

"That's a form of arrogance and stupidity that's going to cost candidates more and more."

But he acknowledges that it's impossible to see the "sweat on the top lip of the candidate" from a distance.

That kind of insight is key, according to the Nine Network's Queensland political editor, Spencer Jolly, who has covered every state campaign since 1980.

In 2001, when opposition leader Rob Borbidge was shocked by his candidates preferencing One Nation against his wishes, Jolly had a front-row seat. "We watched him over the course of the afternoon as the colour drained from his cheeks and the plug was pulled from the campaign," he said.

"You've got to be there in case the untoward happens."

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: JARED OWENS, ROSANNE BARRETT