First of all, here's what we have for you this week:
- Killer Grabs: The BBC saga rolls on, while the industrial campaigning at the ABC heats up.
- The commercial radio hosts who really run Australia — By Osman Faruqi
- The Good Ones: A new drama from the creator of Breaking Bad, a Netflix political drama, one of the best albums of the year, and two great bits of local journalism.
On Thursday, 20,000 pages of new Jeffrey Epstein documents dropped and most of the world's media has been sifting through them — including us.
That's why today we have a double-header for you.
First, a piece that goes deeper on the links between commercial radio hosts and governments around Australia passing knee-jerk, hastily drafted new laws that affect all of us.
Second, a key question we have after reviewing the latest batch of Epstein documents: How close was Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, years after the two supposedly ceased contact with each other?
We'll let you decide. It's a jam-packed newsletter this week.
Killer Grabs
"It's a wonderful thing – how often do you get to be accepted into a circle of trust among the people who belonged to, some of whom still belong to, the Mossad" — BBC's online Middle East Editor
As the scandal over an edit in Donald Trump's speech on January 6 brought down the BBC's most senior leaders, it also emerged this week that the broadcaster's online editor for the Middle East once had glowing words for the Mossad and their "fantastic operations".
The editor in question is currently threatening to sue Drop Site News over allegations that the independent website published that he acted to "water down" any criticism of Israel in BBC articles.
"Today, they pulled staff who are MEAA delegates into a meeting with no notice to try to intimidate them about the poster wars." — Media union email to ABC staff on Thursday.
Ahhhhh, the poster wars of 2025 aren't over yet. Thank god.
The poster wars are part of a wider conflict: a new agreement on pay and conditions is being negotiated between management and staff. The first time new managing director Hugh Marks has had to deal with the unions.
The last time the poster wars came to public attention, ABC HR said one poster criticising management's pay offer was a "psychosocial hazard".
The commercial radio hosts who really run Australia
By Osman Faruqi
"Talkback squawking hacks, won't relax
Until Jonesy, Zemanek and Laws are all axed"
— 77%, The Herd
At the turn of the millennium, commercial radio hosts like Alan Jones, Stan Zemanek and John Laws were among the most influential players in Australian culture, society and politics.
They drove public opinion on issues like crime and immigration, and pushed both major parties towards cruel and callous policies that made Australia a meaner and more insular country (hence their namecheck on The Herd’s iconic indictment of this nation’s immigration policy, 77%).
