Fourth Estate

This week on Fourth Estate, we unpack the biggest stories shaping Australian media, politics and journalism. As the Royal Commission into Antisemitism turns its attention to the media, we examine the recommendations aimed at the ABC and SBS, including calls for greater oversight and more "positive" coverage of Israel. What could this mean for editorial independence, public trust and press freedom?...

Karl Stefanovic's dramatic exit from Nine has become one of the biggest Australian media stories of the year. But is this simply the downfall of a television star, or a sign that the media landscape itself is changing? After his podcast interview with far-right activist Tommy Robinson sparked widespread backlash, Nine ended its three-decade relationship with one of its biggest names. Now, as Stefa...

After serving as Prime Minister Bob Hawke's press secretary, Barrie Cassidy returned to journalism with a new perspective on politics and power. Following several years as a correspondent based in the United States with The Australian, an unexpected approach from Network Ten persuaded him to return to Australia to host Meet the Press. In Part Two of our special profile series, Barrie reflects on t...

Thirty years ago, Pauline Hanson exposed a fault line in Australian politics that never really went away. This week, following Hanson's first National Press Club address and amid signs One Nation is enjoying its strongest political moment in years, Fourth Estate asks what the media got right, what it got wrong, and whether we've ever truly understood the Australia that keeps bringing Hanson back....

When Barrie Cassidy arrived in Canberra in 1979, Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, the political shockwaves of the 1975 dismissal were still reverberating through Australian politics, and Fraser was already fending off the leadership ambitions of a rising Andrew Peacock. The press gallery was smaller, the media landscape less fragmented, and for a young reporter who had discovered a passion for p...

For decades, China was seen in Australia as an opportunity. Today, it's more often described as a threat. But how much of Australia's understanding of China reflects reality — and how much is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves? As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks of an "ideological disagreement" with the United States, and as global tensions expose vulnerabilities in supply chains and e...

Sarah Wilson has lived through almost every era of modern media — from becoming a newspaper columnist in her early 20s, to editing Cosmopolitan magazine and hosting MasterChef Australia, writing bestselling books, podcasting and independent publishing. But in recent years, her focus has shifted toward much bigger questions: how do we live meaningfully in an age of ecological crisis, political inst...

As the war in Gaza continues — and journalists covering the conflict are being killed at unprecedented rates — we return to the Fourth Estate archives for a conversation that now feels more urgent than ever. In this 2020 interview, former ABC Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill joins then-Fourth Estate host Sharon Davis to discuss McNeill’s book We Can’t Say We Didn’t Know: Dispatches From An...

From accusations of “broken promises” to cries of socialism, class warfare and even communism, the media reaction to the Albanese Government’s federal budget has been fierce. But how radical are the reforms actually being proposed? This week, Tina Quinn examines the political and media framing surrounding the budget — from the rhetoric around debt, aspiration and intergenerational burden, to the b...

Are we asking enough questions about the way Australia manages inflation, and the way the media reports on it? Every Reserve Bank decision is treated like a national event. Interest rates rise, borrowers brace, and economists debate whether inflation expectations remain “anchored”. But has economic journalism become too narrowly framed around the logic of the Reserve Bank? And are governments esca...

In December 2023, Australia’s national broadcaster made the decision to dismiss one of its radio presenters, claiming she had brought the Australian Broadcasting Corporation into disrepute after sharing a social media post from Human Rights Watch highlighting atrocities in Gaza. Within hours, The Australian had reported on her removal. But it was her decision to challenge the dismissal in court th...

Community radio station 2SER could be off the air within months, after the withdrawal of long-standing university funding. In this episode of Fourth Estate, we examine how the station reached this point — from the timeline of key decisions to growing concerns from staff, volunteers and alumni about transparency and leadership. Former 2SER Program Director and Fourth Estate host Anthony Dockrill jo...

This week, one of Australia’s most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of war crime murder. The charges follow years of investigative reporting by journalists at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald — and a landmark defamation case that tested that reporting in court. In this episode of Fourth Estate, Tina Quinn speaks with two of the journalists b...

More than 2,000 ABC staff walked off the job in the broadcaster’s first strike in 20 years. While the dispute centred on pay, progression and job security, it also exposed deeper concerns about culture, leadership and editorial independence. In this episode of Fourth Estate, Tina Quinn speaks with current and former ABC journalists, including Michael Slezak, Fran Kelly, Quentin Dempster, Emma Fiel...

"She seems unaware of just how inexperienced she is," was how one media commentator described Virginia Trioli when she first took her place behind the microphone of the Drive program on 774 ABC Radio Melbourne. She had by that point more than a decade of experience as a journalist — but was still relatively new to the art of broadcasting. But Trioli was a quick study, and in the 25 years that foll...

When Virginia Trioli stepped onto the floor of "this horrible soviet-style building" that was The Age newsroom as a young cadet journalist in 1990, she knew she’d found her place — despite the building doing its best to suggest otherwise. What followed was a career that quickly established her as a formidable voice in print, including the publication of her seminal feminist manifesto, Generation F...

For eleven years, John Howard dominated Australian politics, winning four elections and reshaping the country’s political and economic direction. To many supporters, he remains the careful economic manager with a plain-spoken style and an instinctive connection to suburban voters. But in her new book Where It All Went Wrong: The Case Against John Howard, journalist and political commentator Amy Re...

Fourth Estate goes live for this special International Women’s Day edition, as host Tina Quinn revisits some of the remarkable women who helped reshape Australian journalism. Featuring archival interviews with Margaret Throsby, Liz Hayes, Maxine McKew, Bridget Brennan, Laura Tingle and more, the program reflects on the barriers women faced in the newsroom, and the legacy they’ve left for the gener...

The United States and Israel have launched a joint military operation against Iran, killing the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and dramatically escalating tensions across the Middle East. But as the conflict unfolds, it is also exposing deep divisions within the Iranian community and its wider diaspora, and whether the media is capturing the complexity of those voices. Host Tina...

In the wake of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliatory missile attacks across the region, we return to the Fourth Estate archives. In this 2020 conversation, Iranian-American journalist, writer and academic Azadeh Moaveni joins then-host, Sharon Davies talking to the dangers of reporting from Iran and her book, Guest House for Young Widows, examining the young women from Europe an...

Once a beacon of groundbreaking American journalism, the masthead that helped expose Watergate and held presidents to account is now undergoing sweeping cuts that have shaken its newsroom. More than 300 journalists have been laid off at The Washington Post, foreign correspondents, climate reporters, local staff, entire desks dismantled. For many inside the newsroom, it wasn’t just the scale of the...

Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia was framed as routine diplomacy by political leaders and much of the press. But outside the official engagements, thousands protested — and in Sydney, violent clashes between demonstrators and police were captured on camera. Footage showed officers punching and capsicum-spraying protesters, including an 18-year-old pinned to the ground and struck...

This week on Fourth Estate, we examine how the media covered the biggest stories of the week, from the attempted bombing at an Invasion Day rally in Perth, now declared a terrorist act, to the latest document dump linked to Jeffrey Epstein. We also look at the shifts happening within the media itself, as Nine Entertainment sells off its powerful talkback radio stations and the ABC launches a new Q...

A chaotic week in federal politics has left the opposition fractured and raised serious questions about how power is being exercised in Parliament. As the Albanese government rushed landmark hate-speech and extremism legislation through in under 24 hours, warnings about civil liberties, due process and executive overreach were brushed aside. The speed of the laws’ passage split the Coalition, with...

In the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, a sustained media and political campaign intensified pressure on the government to establish a royal commission into antisemitism. Within a day of the Albanese government announcing that one would take place, an invitation to Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah to appear at Adelaide Writers’ Week was rescinded, citing concerns around cultural se...