Given the election campaign has barely begun, no real policies are being announced and the public isn't fully engaged yet, journalists should get off the bus and not waste their time chasing the leaders around, writes Greg Jericho.

For voters tuning in now to the election coverage there wouldn't be a great deal they need to catch up on.

In light of the absurd length of this campaign and the relative dearth of announcements it is not surprising that media companies are pulling their reporters off the campaign bus.

Back in 2010, when I was a lowly pseudonymous blogger, I wrote a post suggesting journalists following the leaders on the campaign bus were largely wasting their time, and I recommended to editors that if they wanted to save some money to "bring home your journalists".

At the time there was some pretty solid criticism of my view from journalists such as current chief political reporter for Fairfax, James Massola, who suggested I didn't understand journalism "as a process". So I did manage a slight smile when I read on Monday that Fairfax was pulling their journalists off the campaign bus at least for part of the campaign.

This time around there is little surprise at the move because once again there has been criticism of the campaign coverage, but this time by journalists themselves.

The AFR's Laura Tingle on just the fourth day of the campaign asked if "the media" was "really in a position to accuse the political process of lacking substance." And she noted "there was a frenzy of coverage on Wednesday because ... Bill Shorten bought a cup of coffee."

Back in 2010 Latika Bourke was one of those journalists on the bus who was very determined to stress the importance and difficulty of the job - such as the long days journalists worked. But this week she noted of her time on the 2010 campaign that:

"By the end I was left wondering who was benefiting from the campaigns? It felt like they were showing the worst side of the media and politicians, but rarely reaching real voters."

Well, quite.

Given the expense, it's not surprising Fairfax has brought journalists off the bus, but it's also a smart decision because largely the campaign hasn't begun.

Thus far aside from a few announcements such as the ALP's decision to un-freeze the indexation of Medicare rebates, little that has been announced has been both new and significant.

Do we really need a busload of journalists following Malcolm Turnbull to hear him announce $30 million funding for local parks?

The ALP has made a few more new spending commitments such as the $500 million for the Adelaide tram network or the $1 billion funding for the Perth Metrolink (to be paid for by not spending roughly that amount on the Perth Freight Link). These are significant policies, but even they at any other time would be perfectly well covered by local reporters.

We get tricked into thinking an election campaign means leaders should be followed and receive much more coverage for announcements that are often very local in nature.

On the Government's side, there has been little said other than defence of its budget - which is not surprising given the budget is still only three weeks old.

Governments always go around selling the budget in May, but normally all media outlets don't have masses following the PM and Treasurer, and neither should they now just because writs have been issued and we're five-and-a-half weeks from the election.

And while Fairfax and others may give good reasons why they are reducing their coverage on the bus, the overwhelming one would be the cost and the fact the campaign is not generating much interest.

Certainly the more news oriented sites and live blogs would be doing well, but you only need look at the front pages of the Sunday papers to see the lack of interest.

Here were the front pages of the Sunday Telegraph on the first two weekends of this campaign:

These were the first two from 2013:

Yes it is a small sample, and the weekday front pages still feature aspects of the campaign, but not a great deal more other than the occasional bad photo shopping work from The Daily Telegraph:

You only need to watch the 6pm news each night to see that it doesn't take much to knock the election coverage down the news food chain. And that's before the NRL State of Origin really kicks into gear.

The ANU's study of voting habits in Australian elections shows that as a general rule a third of voters make up their minds during the campaign. However, given the general closeness of the polling it wouldn't be a surprise if that number is higher as there is no sense of poll numbers being locked in as was the case in 2007:

But that the campaign is three weeks longer than usual doesn't mean that voters will engage with the campaign three weeks earlier. Both campaigns know this and it is why there has been thus far a comparative lack of new announcements.

The ALP has sensibly devoted a week to an issue - education in the first week; health in the second. They provided some broad brush policy strokes with some new money thrown in, but certainly nothing like the "new-day, new-issue" approach usually associated with recent campaigns.

Meanwhile, the Government appears to have shifted from trying to sell its budget and instead is attacking the ALP for over-spending. Neither tactics lead to much new being announced.

Ironically, because of the lack of new announcements and because any policy discussion has generally involved aspects to do with the budget or relatively well traversed areas (such as the Medicare rebate indexation), the coverage by those following the leaders around has been quite good.

At the doorstop announcing the unfreezing of the Medicare rebates, for example, journalists asked Bill Shorten good policy questions.

Turnbull, meanwhile, has often been forced into his "let me explain" and "can I just say" mode, such as on Monday when journalists asked him about Health Minister Sussan Ley's comments that she wanted to unfreeze the Medicare rebate but that "finance and treasury aren't allowing" her to do it "just yet".

But such good work is quickly being crowded out by idiocy. On Tuesday one journalist asked Shorten that since Turnbull had called him "Billion Dollar Bill, what would you call him?"

And the relative lack of actual new policies has seen a shift to savvyness and poll discussion.

And thus we get ruminations about whether or not a "dead cat" has been thrown (because it is just too hard to believe that Peter "oh is that boom mic on" Dutton could just say something stupid), or whether the Liberal Party should "Let Turnbull be Turnbull" (as if what we're seeing is anything but that).

This weekend will likely have the leaders' debate, and perhaps with five weeks to go, a normal campaign will begin. I suspect it won't really start to feel like an election campaign till June ticks over.

Given the campaign has quickly descended into general political noise with little to differentiate it from any other week, both parties will be trying to work out when and how to really make voters sit up and realise an election campaign is on.

And until that time, and possibly even afterwards, there really isn't much reason for journalists to follow them around.

Greg Jericho writes weekly for The Drum. He tweets at @grogsgamut. His personal blog is Grog's Gamut.