Paul Lewis: Mindless minders muddle the media

The skinny security man was bristling with indignation. Would Sir care to accompany him to the venue media manager immediately?

No, Sir would not. Sir was 10 minutes into an interview with New Zealand bowls icon Peter Belliss and we were enjoying ourselves. But this was the evil media so the tightly-wired martinet of a security man was taking no chances.

He simmered with rage as I suggested he might like to go away and do something more useful, like count passing cars. The look on his face was that of a man who would dearly like to draw his Taser and stun-gun me, sending 10,000 volts through my rebellious soul - but then realised he didn't have one.

I agreed to go with him to meet the media manager. A gracious woman, she was as puzzled as I by my sudden appearance before her. I explained the situation and that she might like to staff the venue (a) with security people who might work out that, if I was a terrorist, I would probably be bombing something rather than interviewing Belliss and (b) that tightly-wired little martinet of a man might be placed into a job more suited to him, like picking up dog poo.

I tend to quote days like this when friends and family ask me about covering big sports events. They automatically assume that it is a glamorous assignment, and on some occasions it is.

But this is the side of a Games no one else sees. It is also one of the factors that affect the verdict on a Games. Now the media are not primping prima donnas (well, not all of us, anyway) but there is no doubt that the world's media look more kindly on a Games if they feel they have been organised well.

Sadly, Melbourne fell way short on the media front. Not that it's an easy job. Thousands of us from round the world, all with a critical eye. It's like inviting wasps to a picnic. But, to these Games organisers, the media seem a necessary evil, needed to spread the word of a successful Games and sponsors' messages - but a massive, unwanted logistical burden.

They deal with this by erecting monuments to bureaucracy. No tickets to events, unnecessary security searches, lack of knowledge re transport, poor communication, bus drivers who ask for directions, interview areas so far away that it is impossible to get to the athletes for interviews - the list goes on.

Part of the problem in Melbourne is the difficult balance between security and media access; and using volunteers to marshal professionals. The volunteers seem uniformly good people. But many are in jobs for which they have little or no affinity, nor background. They work to rules set by faceless masters - rules which seem designed to frustrate rather than facilitate.

It is the hideous red tape and adherence to bureaucracy that rankles most. Aussies are actually highly skilled at bureaucracy and, as it is the refuge of the uncertain, it surfaces regularly when journalists try to talk to athletes.

Like our call at the gymnastics venue to talk to the New Zealand team. Our passage to the gym they were training in was blocked and the venue's media manager explained in ringing tones why we couldn't possibly see the team, even though we had arranged to do so.

Our chef de mission had to ring another chef de mission. They had to do this, we had to do that, several planets had to align and we had to whistle I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman in e-flat, then we had to bend over and peer up our own orifice while holding a cup of water in one hand - you get the picture.

'And that's why I'm afraid you can't see the team,' she finished triumphantly, about to be a good media manager by stopping the media from doing their job. 'But the team are standing behind you,' I said. They'd grown tired of waiting in the gym and had come to the media room. So we sat down and started the interview. Up stepped Madam media manager again.

'I'm sorry,' she trilled. 'This isn't the media lounge - this is the media working area. Would you mind moving to the media lounge?' The 'lounge' was three metres away - two horrid red settees facing each other, next to two sad tables. The media working area was almost completely uninhabited. In a triumph of self-control (it doesn't happen often), I managed to refrain from saying anything to MMM, although I silently wished her an onset of female baldness.

The gymnastics people (who get painfully little publicity) wanted to talk to us. The only people who seemingly didn't want us to talk were the people supposed to help make it happen - but they were lost in a morass of rules that make them worry about which part of a room we sit in.

This kind of thing happens in all Olympic and Commonwealth Games - but it seemed alarmingly prevalent in Melbourne.

As we dragged our tired bodies to the Main Press Centre at the end of a long day, a gorgon security woman with fake red hair squawked at us as we protested at a sudden change in the rules (ie no camera gear through this door but only at a door about 1.5km away).

'We are on the front line if there are any bombs,' she screeched as we walked away (as if that explains why they don't just set up proper screening at all entries as they do in Games all over the world).

But the gorgon's mention of bombs did sustain me on the long walk, with a wholly unworthy mental picture of an explosion and a scattering of fake red hair on the Spencer St pavement. But I'm better now. With the mindless minders of Melbourne left far behind.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY