QUEENSLAND STATE ELECTI0N:

Stunned after reading a recent two-page state election spread in The Courier-Mail that almost made the paper look like a professional and fair news organisation, The Bug sought an urgent telephone interview with the paper’s editor Chris Jones to find out what the hell was going on and was everything okay up at the LNP’s Bowen Hills branch. Below is the transcript of that talk.

The Bug: You could have knocked all of us over with a feather here at Bug HQ when we saw your paper’s recent spread (at top) looking at where the state opposition was going to find the money to fund its promises. We all looked at one another and wondered whether all of a sudden The Courier-Mail had ambitions to be a professional, balanced and fair journalistic outfit.

Chris Jones: Well, I wouldn’t go that far!

The Bug: C’mon, take a compliment when it’s given. We’re trying to be nice here. We were especially impressed with the heading DAVID DEVILLED BY THE DETAILS.

Jones: I admit that did look like an issue we would normally tear into edition after edition if it was the Labor government with a possible black hole in its election costings.

The Bug: Exactly what we thought. The moment we saw that two-page spread we all basically said in unison: “Boy, oh, boy, some Courier staff will be headed for the exit doors under security guard escort over this!” The reporters. The sub-editor. Even more senior editorial staff. even you maybe? And yet no-one’s lost their jobs?

Jones: Not at this stage.

The Bug: After seeing that spread, we even thought the Queensland patron of the Voice for Victims community group might follow suit and be a little more even handed?

Jones: I can’t imagine Nine News Queensland ever doing that!

The Bug: Now that we’ve worked that joke in, back to your recent yarn. We also thought that for the Courier to momentarily come across as a professional, balanced and fair journalistic outfit, you must be extremely confident that the LNP will easily win the election on 26 October?

Jones: Yes, that was largely behind the thinking of our editorial people who let that two-page spread stand. Surely the polls and the bookies haven’t got this one wrong. The LNP at just $1.05 and Labor at $11. Besides, it will be nice for us to finally get one right.

The Bug: So if an LNP landslide win is assured, we won’t be seeing a repeat of the disgracefully biased, pro-LNP coverage on the election that we witnessed from The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail the last three state elections?

Jones:: Well, I wouldn’t go that far! The polls are looking fantastic at the moment for a long overdue return to the good, strong, stable LNP government that the Sunshine state so desperately needs but you never know what might happen on the hustings. It’s not as if Crisafulli is on top of his brief or for that matter real leadership material. He’s a bit of a lightweight, really. Oh, look, you’d better not use that.

The Bug: Consider it done. But overall, what you’re saying is that there will be no need for James Campbell from down in Melbourne to once again be writing vitriolic anti-Labor splashes during the remaining three-and-a-bit weeks of the campaign and for your election pages to be so pro-LNP?

Jones: Well, I wouldn’t go that far!

The Bug: So we can still expect Campbell exclusives on how Miles suffers from really bad halitosis or failed civics at high school or stole a cream doughnut in the tuckshop line at state school or is a scrunchie rather than a folder when it comes to wiping his arse?

Jones: Well, all I’m saying is that we may not have to resort to that. He’ll be charging more per word now that he’s been retrenched at The Herald Sun. We might be able to avoid that expense seeing we are looking at the well-deserved wipeout defeat of a government that has been in office for far too long. No government deserves a fourth term in our view. That’s clearly the view of most Queensland voters too.

The Bug: You never once criticised the LNP Brisbane City Council earlier this year despite seeking a fifth four-year municipal term?

Jones: Is that the time? We’ll have to wrap this up pretty soon, I’m sorry. Editorial meeting and all that.

The Bug: This temporary lapse into looking like a balanced, professional news organisation. Have you ever wondered that after failing totally at swaying public opinion at the last three state polls, you might have more cut through if you ran more stories like this one? Displaying a bit more balance might make readers more likely to accept any attacks you do launch on the Labor government more seriously?

Jones: Of course we’d love to be more like a balanced professional news outfit all the time but you try to tell him that!

The Bug: By him you mean that flaccid-arsed, money-hungry, ethics challenged, criminally inclined, tax-evading, viagra-overdosed, nonagenarian cunt in New York?

Jones: Is that the time? I really need to go.

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