More sizzle than substance in election coverage

Sunday, with Election 2010 barely twenty four hours old, the first heavy hitting advertisements of the campaign hit our screens and appeared in our Sunday newspapers.  They had surprisingly high production values for election ads but in my view they went straight to the heart of what this election is all about – the fight over which political journalist will win the most viewers. We’ve heard that Channel 7 will go “Beyond the spin”, a new ABC TV Channel is competing with Sky News, Sky News is still great and Channel 9 still has Laurie Oakes.  After two days of the campaign we’ve seen more advertising by news organisations for their election coverage than we have from the major political parties.