THE great thing about being a journalist during a general election is you get to have it both ways. You need pictures. You despise political parties that don't cater to that need. You hope, nay, encourage, candidates to wear something peculiar or do something silly in order to provide those pictures. And then you sneer at them for their "photo-op thinking". Especially if the photo-op backfires. Like the pigeons.

The pigeons were Fianna Fail birds and the photo-opportunity was something to do with peace in the North. Except that nobody had the key to the Garden of Peace and anyway someone had puked on the statue from which the birds were supposed to be released. Nonetheless, the bird-release went ahead.

"Did you get that?" Dermot Ahern asked the photographers as soon as the pigeons disappeared skywards.

"No, " came the chorus. The minister . . . fair dues to him . . . fell around laughing.

It made for great colour-pieces on radio.

As did Pat Rabbitte's refusal to be filmed eating a cream bun. Rabbitte knows the rules of photo-ops: never allow anything to be put on your head because it'll make you look like a plonker, never be filmed eating or drinking and if you're handed a baby, hand it back before it cries. (On baby-handling, Enda Kenny has developed an extra rule: hold babies the first two weeks of the campaign and get into kissing them only in the last week. ) It was just as well, when bad weather limited photo-ops out of doors at the beginning of the week, that two new TV programmes kicked in. RTE's lunchtime offering, presented by Mark Little, is a neat mixture of politicians, commentators and historical footage, one chunk of which . . . in black and white . . . was presented by a Bill O'Herlihy so young he looked recently weaned.

Little's programme got somewhat bent out of shape by having to include the speeches at Stormont, which allowed Tony Blair to do what he used to do: orate movingly and memorably without studied self-admiring pauses. Fine Gael, Labour, the Greens et al had to grind their teeth while Blair was praising Bertie Ahern in personal and convincing terms. What was interesting was the sadness with which Ahern absorbed the praise.

Over on TV3, Trevor Sargent was the first leader to appear on Polls Apart, which allowed Eddie Hobbs to give his 'Irish RM cunning yokel' performance. His Prussian Blue suit, offset with neon pink, was so visually rewarding that when you blinked, you could still see the after-image.

Matt Cooper, twinned with Hobbs, asked Sargent questions. Hobbs would answer the questions and develop a thesis, after which Cooper would ask another question which Hobbs would answer. Sargent, like a man trying to make a speech in a liquidiser, clearly gained from his earlier outing on Podge and Rodge: he didn't say much about the environment, but demonstrated the sustainability of good manners and good humour.

If the first edition of the programme was like a speeded-up Prime Time directed by Mel Brooks, the second (with Matt Cooper wearing the Prussian Blue suit this time around . . . TV3 must have a small budget) was markedly tidier, allowing Michael McDowell to be coherent for several sentences at a time.

The anti-climax created by the postponement of demands for the Taoiseach to make a statement about the finances of his house, together with the Northern Ireland ceremonials, flattened media coverage in the middle of the week to such an extent that the impending Irish Times poll began to look like a lifeline . . . at least to media. The general public, inundated with election coverage from every available media outlet, is already getting bored.

They can see the questions coming:

To Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrats . . .

You've been there forever, why haven't you done it up to now?

To Labour/Fine Gael . . . You two disagree on this policy, doesn't that indicate problems for a prospective coalition?

To the Greens . . . But aren't you anti-roads, anti-business, anti-bloody everything?

This is another aspect of the media having it both ways. Media likes to maintain that they're in the business of teasing out policy for the public, but what they really want is a fight. Absent a fight, they'll concentrate on opinion-poll death sentences (witness Friday's Daily Mail headline, FG POLL SPELLS DOOM FOR ENDA), gaffes (like Mr Ferris's two pints and a glass of wine) and gruesome moments.

Gruesome moment of the week was the silence at the nurses' conference when the minister for health was announced, closely followed by the fury at the same conference when minister Brian Lenihan told them that life was pretty stressful for the government too.

Running throughout the comment coverage of all parties is the belief that a malign desire for coverage underpins anything any politician does or says during the campaign.

Which ignores the fact that hiding your light/soundbites/one-liners under a bushel has never been proven to be a good way to get elected.