FORGET the 24-hour news cycle, that was the kinder, gentler media of yesteryear.

Allow me to walk you through how things worked back in the day.

The Press Gallery in Parliament House has a notice board and a buzzer.

The challenger’s staff would walk up to the notice board, pin up details of a media conference and ring the bell.

Office juniors clutching notepads would walk down and transcribe the details, returning to their office with the news.

Journalists and camera crews would assemble at the appointed place, make some phone calls for reaction, and the next day’s news stories and that night’s TV bulletins would inform the public, who would in turn respond via talk radio and letters to the editor.

A bit over a decade ago Sky News changed the game with its insatiable need for content and the day of a challenge became a stream of press conferences watched by anyone with access to Foxtel or the parliamentary TV feed (many public service departments have this access as well as pretty much anyone in Parliament House).

Today we have ABC News 24 accessible via mobile phones and we have Twitter.

Everyone in the country who wanted to be involved was intimately along for the ride, and part of the narrative.

“Turnbull is challenging” it cracked, very literally around the world, faster than the speed of sound, faster than any bullet ever made.

Within minutes the sports betting agencies had formed their markets, dutifully pimped around Twitter, and the Prime Minister was doomed.

In past challenges, I’d have stayed in the newsroom all night waiting to hear the Prime Minister’s response to Turnbull. It was at first announced for 5pm.

Through force of habit I stayed in the office. And then it dawned on me, I have a mount on my bicycle for my phone.

So I cycled home with ABC News24 on the handset, informed up to the minute and missing nothing while riding my bike home.

Once home I had to walk the dogs, but Newsradio got me through that, and then nothing was getting me off the couch as I kept citynews.com.au up to date through the dramatic evening.

The next day a truly profound thing happened.

Watching Tony Abbott make his lonely, graceless and self-pitying concession speech on News24 (on my phone so I could keep working on my workstation), I noticed the journalists actually in the Prime Minister’s courtyard were tweeting laments.

Due to the news helicopter overhead (security review, anyone?), the journalists actually in the Prime Minister’s courtyard couldn’t hear a word he was saying.

Whereas sitting in the “CityNews” office watching on my phone, I had the benefit of the lectern microphones to bring me every word being said, not to mention the meta-analysis of thousands of comedians and journalists on Twitter.

It used to be there was no substitute for being there in person.

Fifteen years ago there was no substitute to being in Parliament House.

But now? Now you can be exactly as engaged as you want to be, from wherever you want to be.

When I got home on the night of the challenge I bumped into my neighbour and enthused: “It’s so exciting!”.

“What is?” she asked.

“Turnbull is challenging Abbott!”

“Oh, is he? I suppose that is exciting…”

Not everyone wants to be so involved. But the world is startlingly changed.

(Incidentally a couple of years ago I had, by chance, dinner with Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull and “The Chaser’s” Chas Licciardello. No doubt more memorable for me than the other three, but if the new PM fancies catching up I stand, as ever, ready to serve.)