Fourth Estate

Donald Trump’s latest battle with the press has seen his White House move to exclude CNN, POLITICO and MS NOW — but this time, rival news organisations are standing together. What could Australia’s media learn from that show of solidarity? Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker and former editor of POLITICO, and former ABC Editorial Director Alan Sunderland join Tina Quinn to examine press freedom, political access and what happens when governments decide which journalists get into the room. Then, The Australia Institute's Amy Remeikis takes us inside the Canberra Press Gallery — from political “drops” and strings-attached exclusives to whether Australian journalists need to get better at standing together when one of their own is shut out. And we remember one of the giants of Australian journalism, Peter Manning, who died this week aged 81. Former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes and journalist Jan Fran reflect on the legendary Four Corners executive producer, ABC news leader and mentor who backed generations of journalists to hold power to account. Want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] or follow us @fourthestateau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Australia has changed — but have our politics and media kept up? In his new book Three Shocks: Who We Are Becoming in the 21st Century, journalist and author George Megalogenis charts the demographic, economic and geopolitical forces reshaping the country. Tina Quinn speaks with George about the widening disconnect between Australia and its political class, the media’s enduring obsession with an outdated idea of the “Australian voter”, the resurgence of One Nation and the increasingly fraught debate over migration and housing. They also examine what happens when journalism is no longer the curator of political debate — and an online attention economy increasingly rewards the loudest and most extreme voices. Want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ or follow us ⁠@fourthestateau⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How should journalists report domestic violence — and what happens when allegations of abuse become content? In this edition of Fourth Estate: One From the Archives, Tina Quinn revisits a 2022 conversation recorded in the aftermath of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial, when allegations of domestic violence became the subject of an extraordinary global media and social media spectacle. Journalists Lin Evlin and Helen Pitt examine the media’s reporting of the case, the ethics of covering violence against women, victim-blaming and sensationalism, and the responsibility journalists have when reporting domestic and family violence. Four years on, amid renewed scrutiny of the Depp–Heard case and the online campaign surrounding it, the questions raised in this conversation remain as urgent as ever. Want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠ or follow us ⁠@fourthestateau⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, Fourth Estate returns to the newsrooms and streets where history unfolded in real time. Sandra Sully joins Tina Quinn to reflect on the extraordinary night she became the first Australian journalist to break the news, anchoring live from Network 10 as the scale of the attacks became clear. Former Fourth Estate host Prue Clarke recalls reporting from Ground Zero as a young Financial Times reporter in New York. Then, we examine what happened to journalism in the aftermath: the jingoism that swept through American newsrooms, the treatment of Muslim communities, and the discredited Weapons-of-Mass-Destruction reporting that helped pave the road to war in Iraq — with archival reflections from former New York Times editor Andrew Rosenthal and NBC News journalist Doha Madani. Recommended Links: New Narratives 9-11 and the Liberal Media's Dark Legacy, Fourth Estate Want to get in touch? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] or follow us @fourthestateau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For more than seven decades, Rupert Murdoch has wielded extaordinary influence over journalism, politics and public debate across Australia, Britain and the United States. But how does that power actually work -- and what happens when the Murdoch media decides to turn its attention on you? Tina Quinn speaks with journalists and academics Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson about their new book, Getting Murdoch: How Murdoch's Media Wields Power and Punishment. Drawing on more than 50 case studies, they examine the tactics used to reward allies, punish critics and shape political and public life -- and ask whether the age of Murdoch is really coming to an end, or whether concentrated media power is simply taking new forms. We'd love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] or follow us at @fourthestateau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices