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How journalists cope with the campaign trail

This week after I posted on Twitter that I was going to be on the “Back Baird” campaign bus for the next two days I received this reply:

“Since it’s just a tightly-scripted series of photo-op/soundbite Soma deliveries, do you really have to physically be there?”

It’s a good question and one many media organisations are asking themselves.

What’s the point of joining a magical, mystery tour – hours on the road with just brief stops for orchestrated picture opportunities and brief media conferences?

Many senior journalists covering federal politics have chosen to remain in Canberra during the campaign period and focus on the bigger issues that arise.

But that’s where federal and state politics differ.

Federal politics does concern itself with the bigger issues. State politics is about service delivery. It’s about delivering roads and hospitals and schools.

And the best way to judge how people are happy with their services is to get on the road.

You see, it’s the unscripted moments that make being on the bus worthwhile.

This week the unscripted moments involved the buses themselves.

On Wednesday the Baird bus pulled out from Macquarie Street and headed down the Hume Highway to Queanbeyan, before doubling back and instead picking the Great Western Highway to Katoomba.

Both Queanbeyan and Katoomba are in Coalition-held marginal seats – seats that are predicted to fall with the kind of swing against the Government that is being predicted.

Overnight the bus was parked in a street behind the hotel where the Premier and the media pack were staying.

Word soon got about.

We woke in the morning to find some locals had decided to give the Premier a blunt message.

“Not Welcome” was scrawled on the side of the bus, along with graffiti tags and crude attempts at depicting male genitalia.

“It is an art town,” the Premier joked when I later asked him about it.

“We’re very happy to see art. Sometimes we’re not as happy to see art.”

Mike Baird's vandalised election bus

Not everyone has been happy to see Mike Baird. Photo: ABC

The graffiti had been cleaned off quickly but the pictures were there on Twitter.

Conveniently, Mr Baird’s bus driver Walter had also taken shots on his phone.

It wasn’t the story of the day… but it became a part of it. Why? It was a moment of earthy dissent amid the Government’s attempts to spin a positive message.

Later as we were returning to Sydney, the Premier’s chief of staff – a former television journalist – was philosophical.

You have a room full of advisers stressing over policy announcements, he told me, and then it can all be blown to pieces on the day by a man in a chicken suit.

#BusWars on the campaign trail

On Thursday, I travelled on the Foley campaign bus out to western Sydney.

We visited a factory and later had a brief media conference outside the Nepean hospital.

The hospital sits firmly in the Liberal-held seat of Penrith.

And, as if to remind the Labor leader of it, the Baird bus just happened to trundle by… twice.

Walter was driving again.

He gave me a wave as he passed by and tooted his horn.

He’d been told to look out for the Foley bus and do a couple of laps of the hospital.

Luke Foley tried to hot foot it, so he couldn’t be photobombed. But he was still captured with it in the background.

Lee Jelosek (Channel 7), Sarah Gerathy (ABC) and Alicia Wood (Daily Telegraph) on the campaign trail

Lee Jelosek (Channel 7), Sarah Gerathy (ABC) and Alicia Wood (Daily Telegraph) on the campaign trail. Photo: Selfie

The Baird bus showed up again at a Labor event on Friday. It’s now starting to become a pattern.

“That’s a bit juvenile isn’t it?” My colleague Sarah Gerathy put to the Premier.

“Well it might surprise you Sarah, but I’m not in control of where the bus is going,” he replied.

That opened the opportunity for another question by the Daily Telegraph’s Miles Godfrey.

“So if the Premier of NSW is not in control of his own bus, then who is?” he asked.

Why is a Premier, whose government looks like being returned despite a swing against it, allowing silly games to be played with his bus? One conclusion could be that there’s disquiet among his camp; that perhaps the campaign isn’t going as well as expected.

Of course apart from the silly stunts, the best part of being on the road with the various leaders is the unfettered access.

It’s not unusual for the Opposition Leader to come and spend some time in our gallery offices, just to chew the fat.

But visits from this Premier are rarer.

Mike Baird’s predecessor Barry O’Farrell kept his office in NSW Parliament and frequently stopped by on his way in and out of the building but Mr Baird is based elsewhere.

On the bus, there’s plenty of opportunities for one-on-one interviews.

At food stops and dinners there’s also a chance for normal conversations. It helps both sides.

It’s also loads of fun.

Yes, the days are long and filing can be awkward. It’s not uncommon for radio reporters to shroud themselves in their jackets to record their ‘voicers’, just to cut out the surrounding noise. But there’s a road-trip atmosphere and there’s camaraderie among the journalists.

One thing that hasn’t been a feature so far on these campaign bus tours is the street walk.

Now that’s a minefield of unscripted moments!

Brigid Glanville having her make up done by Channel Nine's Lizzie Pearl

Brigid Glanville having her make up done by Channel Nine’s Lizzie Pearl. Photo: Selfie

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