THIS week began with one of the best parts of being national affairs editor for The Courier-Mail - spending a night in Noosa before fronting 300 keenly interested people to talk politics for 90 minutes.

For the past four years, the ABC's Barrie Cassidy and I have anchored an Insiders program at the seaside event as part of the Noosa Longweekend festival, and it's a treat in every way.

Not only is Noosa an enduringly lovely part of the world and Hastings St restaurants among our very best, that Monday morning audience is, for me, a dream crowd.

These people are avid followers of national politics and they love newspapers, usually reading more than one a day.

In a week when some of the old foundations of the newspaper business were rocking and rolling to the big engine of change, it's great to get out with the faithful.

After Cassidy, I and a few other Insiders regulars - this year it was Malcolm Farr and Misha Shubert helped out by Heather Ewart - exchange our views on the political scene, we have 20 or 30 minutes of questions.

We'd all just learnt about the restructuring of Fairfax - reading the news on our smartphones - but that didn't come up in the Q&A spot. Politics and the media did.

People wanted to know why so much of our popular media spends so much time on gossip and scandal and why journalists in Canberra don't put more pressure on politicians to give straight answers and not just deliver the same scripted lines.

The fact is that gossip and scandal sell newspapers, although in the changing world this might be less so, as much of the mass media moves more and more to an internet-only model.

As for why journalists don't corner politicians, the answer is simple: It's a lot harder than it looks and the politicians are less willing these days to give straight answers.

We have all seen the YouTube videos of politicians here and elsewhere resolutely avoiding questions by, in some cases, giving the same answers to whatever query is put forward.

If you want to be entertained, just Google British Labour leader "Ed Milliband and these strikes are wrong".

The TV journalist who was "interviewing" Milliband said later he felt like asking the Labour leader what was the world's fastest fish to see if he'd stick to his scripted line.

In Canberra there's nothing more frustrating for press gallery journalists than trying to pin down Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, even though he makes himself available almost every parliamentary sitting day.

Abbott very rarely fronts a full news conference in Canberra, preferring to do "doorstops" at staged events outside Parliament House. These are at a place where the Opposition Leader can run a line on the carbon tax and then take a few questions.

There are not many - he will cut the session short by just walking away if questioning turns to things he doesn't want to talk about. Also, because these events are outside Parliament House, only a small number of journalists attend, as most have time and filing pressures and can't afford the hour necessary to get to and from what is primarily a picture opportunity.

As well as not fronting major news conferences, Abbott avoids longer-form interviews. He hasn't appeared on Cassidy's Insiders since the beginning of last year - and it's been the same time since he did an interview with Lateline.

His appearances on the ABC's 7.30 are confined to specific events so that more general questioning is kept to a minimum, and it's a long time since Abbott has conducted a longer interview with any of the major newspapers.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard does at least give news conferences in Canberra when she takes questions until the reporters run dry, and she will appear on shows such as Lateline, Four Corners (to her regret) and the hour-long Q&A.

Usually you learn something about Gillard when she subjects herself to this form of questioning - for better or for worse, as far as she's concerned.

It should be a serious concern that the man who wants to be prime minister and, the polls say, is short odds to achieve that goal, doesn't give longer, searching interviews.

The fact Abbott and his advisers have a deliberate policy to avoid scrutiny should be a major concern for all who take an interest in our national public life.

Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail's national affairs editor.

Originally published as Abbott steers away from the media