Information has indeed become a battleground over which politicians and the media face off, some of the time in an uneasy truce, but just as often in a sparring, confrontational mode.
A reader rang to inquire the other day whether it is true the media are fed up with "the current lot" in government, are itching for a change and the coverage of the election campaign reflected this.
The sentiment had apparently been articulated by a veteran pundit on a radio programme.
Could it be true, my informant wondered, in consternation.
Well, I began carefully, aware that something of a minefield lay ahead, it is a rather sweeping generalisation, but to put it in context . . .
The notion arises in part from the supposition that, after nine years, most of the "stories" about the current lot and their policies, not to mention their penchants and peccadilloes, are old hat.
They have been told in their various guises over and over.
A fresh mob, with fresh faces and fresh undiscovered issues, would herald a whole new trove of material on which to go to work.
And so, yes, at one level it might be possible to at least mount such an argument.
But this is a gross simplification and takes little account of the attrition rate the modern environment imposes on both politicians and journalists, in particular those who live and breathe the rarified air of political intrigue and workaday procedural mundanity in the Beehive.
It is an artificial habitat that by its very political nature thrives on ambition, conspiracy and betrayal.
It's also a workaholics' paradise.
It has been known to drive many to drink, to promote lustful liaisons and otherwise plant the seeds of personal unhappiness.
The media environment surrounding it has changed materially over the past decade or two.
A position in the Parliamentary Press Gallery, or a political editorship, was once the crowning glory of a distinguished career, a status reserved for the great and the good, the highly experienced, the unquestionably talented, and, occasionally, the precocious tyro.
The hours were, to an extent, predictable and the rules of the game understood.
By both sides.
That has all but gone by the board.
Where once media organisations boasted stable staffs and acknowledged career paths, where those same outfits valued experience and wisdom and the analytical skills and all-round professionalism that comes with this, today the rapidly changing culture in many companies - mainly the larger "corporatised" ones - champions other qualities: flexibility, youth, energy, multi-media skills, presentational flair, personal appearance (what is it with young, blonde TV newsreaders and reporters?) and so on.
The market for news has splintered, fractured and burst out of the traditional two-news-cycle day that existed in the days of morning and evening newspapers.
News organisations are 24-hour, seven-day operations and as such have a voracious appetite for any old tit-bit they can lay their hands on any time of the day or night.
And then there is the army of bloggers, the ultimate manifestation of a "democratised" media (though such a definition is hard to swallow when contemplating some of the drivel they inspire).
Politicians have simultaneously met the challenge by staffing themselves up to deal with the constant demand and scrutiny.
They have also become much more adept and sophisticated about the ways in which information is managed or spun.
Information has indeed become a battleground over which politicians and the media face off, some of the time in an uneasy truce but just as often in a sparring, confrontational mode.
Nothing is taken at face value any more.
In this constantly shifting, evolving hothouse world, relationships implode and disintegrate.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
All is fair game.
Journalists ignore the off-the-record niceties that once held sway; politicians rely on the slimmest of technicalities to separate bare-faced lies from something most people might recognise as the truth.
Bias may to an extent exist in the eye of the beholder, but many media organisations themselves muddy the waters between reportage and opinion by allowing prejudicial comments or "angles" to colour "factual" accounts.
I don't believe there is a concerted "conspiracy" to ditch one lot in favour of another; but there are an awful lot of casualties on both sides of the divide, many of whom may bear grudges and harbour dislikes.
The ethics and professional constraints of a bygone age would have absorbed much of that.
In the brave new online media world, the old certainties and traditional practices have been torn up.
And new ones have yet to be fashioned.
Politicians and the media need to relearn how to trust and talk to one another, to engage in civil conversation again - not least so that an ear-wigging public can have greater confidence in our institutions of state.
Simon Cunliffe is assistant editor of the Otago Daily Times.
In 2007 he worked for a couple of months in the Beehive as a parliamentary press secretary.
