Regardless of what happened last night, political reporting should always come with a warning of ''buyer beware''. Readers of newspapers or TV news viewers used to be called ''media consumers'' but that doesn't accurately describe what audiences do today. Audiences have become more educated, media literate and more aware of how politics and the media intersect. They do more than just passively consume news media.

As audiences have become more critical and inquiring, they are increasingly capable of reading between the lines of news stories. And this is vital because so much of what is important in news media is never said, or else is said so indirectly that the reader has to decode it for themselves.

Illustration: John Spooner.

A good example of this happened last month when there were reports that two Labor MPs had packed up their offices as a sign of their despair at Labor's chances at the forthcoming election. That story was prominently reported in newspapers, radio and on television as well as online. But it made no sense - a public confession of imminent defeat was so fatalistic and contrary to normal campaigning practice.

One of the MPs, Daryl Melham, holds his seat with a slim margin of 1.5 per cent so his fears are reasonable, albeit still unusual in the way they were shared with the media and public. But the other MP, Alan Griffin, holds his seat with a margin of more than 7 per cent. That gives him a fighting chance even on the worst reading of current opinion polls.