It’s the Friday before the first weekend of the election campaign and one day to go before the launch of our latest Sky election show, Saturday Live. Only problem is we still don’t have a Liberal to match our ALP guest. It was already looking iffy even before the Jaymes Diaz ‘stop the boats’ debacle broke earlier in the week, making my heart sink and our hard-working producers’ job that much harder.

Contrary to the belief of some critics we do try very hard to get a good mix on our panels, which is becoming increasingly difficult as the shows proliferate and the talent pool becomes thinner. It is not unusual to see the same person you are interviewing that night on a rival network or the same day on your own. Gender balance, check, political balance, yes check, are they intelligent, informed even interesting? Well, that’s a bonus. I always say if you want a group of angry old men yelling at each other you have talk-back radio; if you want a group of ill-informed airheads you have FM radio. If you want a snore-fest to bore you to death there are even channels for that.

So when the Sky news director asked me to host the new Saturday night 9 p.m. show for the duration of the campaign my reservations were not about the extra workload, it’s nothing compared with David Speers or Paul Murray, nor about disruption to my weekend, but how to cajole guests into giving up part of their own. I had the ambitious idea of trying for some new faces, maybe even younger so we are not trawling in the same waters. Yes, there would be media commentators. I have overcome my old antipathy to journos interviewing journos. It stemmed from an Opec conference in my early career as a foreign correspondent when after days of intractable negotiations I noticed the British press packing up to leave. When asked how they knew it was time, one crusty Times reporter pointed to the Japanese film crew and said, ‘When they start interviewing each other you know it’s over.’

Nowadays ‘media commentator’ is a broad term encompassing everything from real journalists to anyone who has worked in media, advertising or marketing; although I personally balk at PR hacks and spin doctors. My idea for the political panel is to have candidates rather than sitting politicians. I figure they will be more available, open and maybe even grateful for the coverage. It is based on a program we trialed during the last NSW state election called ‘So You Want To Be A Politician’. The brainchild of now Rudd adviser Bruce Hawker, it featured him and Liberal adviser Graeme Morris critiquing two hopefuls from the Liberal and Labor parties.

But I had not counted on the strict control being exerted by Liberal party headquarters this Federal election and apparently all contenders across the country are just too busy this Saturday evening. Obviously the embarrassing amateur performance by one candidate had nothing to do with the risk of us unearthing another Jaymes Diaz. I threaten to go all Clint Eastwood with an empty chair next to the already booked ALP and Greens candidates and we are assured they will have someone for us the next week.

Friday night is the Kennedy Awards to celebrate NSW journalists and it is a typical media event — long, loud, louche, well not so much, but certainly more lively than other worthy evenings like the Walkleys or Andrew Olle lecture. I am to present the Sky-sponsored award for excellence in business journalism, my first awards gig, but I learn that doing a smooth job for 90 seconds in front of this tough crowd is a lot harder than hours of live television. At least I didn’t name the wrong winner as did one poor presenter.

Later that weekend, the first show goes off smoothly albeit without the Liberal candidate. We keep it a bit more laid back for the Saturday night audience and the response is generally positive except for the odd Twitter troll who seems to relish spending hours watching shows they apparently hate and tweeting about them. Now it’s on to confirm the guests for next week and the thought crosses my mind how much easier it will be after 7 September — not because the election will be over but there will be a whole new trove of ex-pollies clamouring to be in the media limelight again.