Fourth Estate

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 cuts that shocked, it was the way they were handled. Journalists reportedly learned they had lost their jobs via email and social media. Owner Jeff Bezos was absent. Publisher Will Lewis was absent. And questions are now swirling about leadership, strategy, and the future of one of the world’s most influential newspapers. This week on Fourth Estate, Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 2013 to 2021, and the author of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and THE WASHINGTON POST, joins Tina Quinn to discuss the gutting of the paper, what’s gone wrong, and whether a future for it still exists. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or tweet us at ⁠⁠⁠@fourthestateau⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 repeatedly. Other videos showed men kneeling in prayer before being forcibly removed. Premier Chris Minns has urged the public not to rush to judgement based on short clips, promising an internal investigation and a review of body-worn footage. So how did Australian media cover the visit — and the crackdown? When powerful images circulate instantly, what responsibility do journalists have to interrogate official narratives? And has the story shifted from diplomacy to police conduct? Plus: Angus Taylor rolls Sussan Ley to become Liberal leader, Lenore Taylor steps down as Editor of Guardian Australia, and we reflect on the life and legacy of cartoonist Jon Kudelka. Joining Tina Quinn to discuss is Mike Bowers (Host of Talking Pictures), David Leser (Regular contributor to Good Weekend) and Daanyal Saeed (Media Writer at Crikey). Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠⁠⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠⁠⁠ or tweet us at ⁠⁠⁠@fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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-style panel show. Joining Tina Quinn to discuss is Charlie Lewis from Crikey and Daniel James from 7am. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠⁠⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠⁠⁠ or tweet us at ⁠⁠⁠@fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 the Nationals walking away and Liberal leader Sussan Ley fighting to hold her leadership together. On this episode of Fourth Estate, we unpack how the legislation passed so quickly, why it proved so destabilising for the opposition, and what it reveals about the current political moment — from the use of fear and urgency in law-making to the media’s role in amplifying campaigns for a royal commission. Joining Tina Quinn to discuss are Rachel Withers, Contributing Editor at The Point, and Claudia Long, Federal Politics Reporter at ABC News. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠⁠ or tweet us at ⁠⁠@fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 sensitivity. The fallout was swift, more than 180 writers withdrew, the festival collapsed, its director resigned, and the board stepped down. This episode of Fourth Estate examines how sustained media pressure can move beyond scrutiny into something more coercive — shaping decisions, narrowing debate, and contributing to institutional implosion. Joining Tina Quinn to discuss is Amy Remeikis (The Australia Institute), Paul Karp (The Australian Financial Review) and Osman Faruqi (Lamestream Media). Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠ or tweet us at ⁠@fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a special summer edition of Fourth Estate, we turn the clock back to December 2018, when broadcaster and journalist Mike Carlton joined then host Peter Fray for a wide-ranging conversation about his newly published memoir, ⁠On Air⁠. The book traces Carlton’s long career across Australian journalism — from print to radio — offering a candid account of life behind the microphone, the shifting culture of newsrooms, and the pressures shaping public debate. Recorded during a period of profound upheaval in Australia’s media landscape, this conversation reflects on power, personality, and the responsibilities of broadcasters, themes that feel as resonant now as they did then. Plus ça change. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠ or tweet us at ⁠@fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special Fourth Estate summer re-release, we revisit Tina Quinn's conversation with Australian journalist, Lisa Millar, from September, 2021. From her years as a foreign correspondent with the ABC, first in Washington, then later on in London, to co-hosting News Breakfast, Millar reflects on an incredible three decades in journalism. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at ⁠fourthestate@2ser.com⁠ or tweet us at ⁠@fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How is press freedom being tested in the Trump era? In this episode of Fourth Estate, Tina Quinn is joined by Media Correspondent with NPR, David Folkenflik and Chief Political Correspondent for The Washington Post, Karen Tumulty, examining the growing pressure on journalists in the United States. They discuss Trump’s personal attacks on reporters, lawsuits against major networks, access restrictions, media ownership battles, and upheaval inside legacy mastheads. If the First Amendment supposedly still stands, how is press freedom quietly eroding? Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fourthestate@2ser.com or tweet us at @fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the mass shooting at Bondi, Australia became a global headline, and a case study in how tragedy is rapidly politicised. Before facts were established, misinformation surged, racial vilification followed, and political narratives hardened. Jewish, Middle Eastern, Arabic and Muslim communities were unfairly targeted, while debates over gun laws, antisemitism and national security were pulled into the news cycle at speed. In this episode of Fourth Estate, we interrogate how the Bondi shooting was covered, and how journalism struggled under pressure. Joining Tina Quinn to unpack the coverage and issues at play is Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Palestine Laboratory, as well as Crikey's Daanyal Saeed and The Australian Financial Review's Jennifer Hewett. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fourthestate@2ser.com or tweet us at @fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist, author and feminist thinker Virginia Haussegger joins Tina Quinn to examine why the feminist revolution — inside Australia’s media and beyond — remains unfinished. Drawing on her latest book, Unfinished Revolution: The Feminist Fightback, Haussegger traces the long arc of sexism, backlash and resistance — from the media mockery of feminism during International Women’s Year in 1975, through to the misogyny directed at Australia’s first female prime minister, and the explosive reckoning of the March4Justice movement in 2021. Despite women now slightly outnumbering men as reporters in Australian newsrooms, Haussegger argues that real power has barely shifted. Media ownership and executive leadership remain overwhelmingly male, reinforcing cultures of machismo, misogyny and resistance to accountability. She reflects candidly on her own career — thriving at times inside these systems — and on confronting the ways sexism shaped even her own assumptions. The conversation ranges from the treatment of women in political and media life, to the persistence of gendered violence, the silencing of feminist history, and Australia’s slide on global gender equality rankings. At a moment of global backlash against women’s rights, this is a searching discussion about power, media, history and whether feminism still dares to imagine revolution. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fourthestate@2ser.com or tweet us at @fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After ten years co-hosting The Today Show, Liz Hayes made a decision that would reshape her life — she walked away from the top breakfast-television gig in the country. In this second part of this conversation with Tina Quinn, Liz shares the personal turmoil that led her to professional triumphs at 60 Minutes, and the extraordinary assignments that took her from the war in Afghanistan, to the emerald mines of Colombia, and detention centers at Guantanamo Bay. She reflects on the emotional toll of high-stakes reporting, the interviews that have stayed with her, and her eventual decision to leave Channel Nine after an incredible 44 years. For more on Liz, pick up a copy of her 2023 memoir, I'm Liz Hayes. Her new book, Outback Astronomer, is out now. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fourthestate@2ser.com or tweet us at @fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Liz Hayes is one of Australia’s most trusted and enduring journalists — but her story begins far from the studio lights. In this first part of our profile, Liz joins Tina Quinn in-studio to reflect on her upbringing on the Mid North Coast, where she started out as a cadet reporter, and her rapid rise through the newsrooms of Network Ten and Channel Nine. She talks about her decade at the helm of The Today Show — a role that made her one of the most recognisable faces in the country, as well as the pressures that came with that visibility, and the expectations placed on women in television in the 1980s and 90s. Get in touch: We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fourthestate@2ser.com or tweet us at @fourthestateau Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For more than a century, Condé Nast defined taste, power, and aspiration. From Vogue and Vanity Fair to The New Yorker and GQ, its magazines didn’t just chronicle culture — they shaped it. In this episode, Tina Quinn speaks with media correspondent for The New York Times, Michael M. Grynbaum, author of Empire Of The Elite, about how the company built an empire of influence — and how that power has been transformed in the age of social media, shifting values, and audiences who no longer wait to be told what’s beautiful or important. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just weeks ago, Palestinian media worker Samer Tarazi was struggling for survival amid the devastation of Gaza. Now safe in Sydney, he reflects on what he witnessed — the destruction of his city, the loss of his journalist colleagues, and the ongoing toll of a conflict that continues to test the world’s conscience. As news breaks of a “ceasefire” — hailed by some as a breakthrough and dismissed by others as fragile and uncertain — Samer joined host, Tina Quinn in studio to speak about survival, truth-telling, and what peace really means when you’ve lived through war. With translation and assistance from ABC journalist Nabil Al-Nashar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the main stage at Sydney’s ICC, Women In Media's national conference brought together some of the sharpest voices in journalism and storytelling — Claudia Karvan, Hanna Rosin, Libbi Gorr, Hannah Ferguson, and Monica Attard among them. Join Tina Quinn as she dives into the standout moments and voices from the day, unpacking the ideas, debates and powerful moments that emerged. To find out more about WIM, head to womeninmedia.com.au - you'll be able to find more information about the Caroline Jones Women in Media Young Journalist’s Award at the website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Stasiland was first published in 2003, it became an international sensation — winning the UK’s top non-fiction prize and propelling Anna Funder onto the world stage. In part two of this conversation with Tina Quinn, Anna reflects on the book’s extraordinary acclaim, and how her distinctive approach to truth-telling shaped her later works, All That I Am, The Girl with the Dogs, and Wifedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

She may not call herself a journalist, but Anna Funder’s work is a fearless meditation on truth, and a masterclass in pushing the boundaries of genre to capture it. Her writing tackles the great arcs of 20th-century history, from the totalitarian state of East Germany, to the rise of Nazism, to the shackles of patriarchy, always through the lives of real people whose courage, resilience, and quiet heroism shine through. As part of our ongoing in-profile series, Anna joined Tina Quinn in studio to talk about her journey from Melbourne to East Berlin — the city where the stories that became her award-winning debut book, Stasiland, first began to take shape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we mark 24 years since the September 11 terror attacks, we revisit the Fourth Estate archives with a special episode first broadcast in September 2021 on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Hosted at the time by Prue Clarke — who herself was in New York when the attacks happened — this conversation digs into the media’s role in shaping America’s response, from uncritical reporting that smoothed the path to war, to coverage that overlooked the backlash against Muslim Americans and the erosion of civil liberties within the United States. Prue was joined by Andrew Rosenthal, former editorial page editor of The New York Times, and Doha Madani, senior breaking news reporter at NBC News. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador in a move that dominated headlines. But while the media focused on the diplomatic drama, the government quietly introduced legislation that would strip certain migrants of their right to procedural fairness — a story almost entirely buried by the Iran announcement. Both developments raise serious questions about secrecy, accountability, and double standards — questions the media largely failed to ask. On this episode of Fourth Estate, we look at how the media missed the bigger story, why the public was quicker to connect the dots, and what it tells us about Australia’s treatment of migrants and its relationships abroad. Joining host, Tina Quinn, is two stalwarts of the Canberra Press Gallery - Amy Remeikis (Chief Political Analyst for The Australia Institute) and Mark Kenny (Director of the Australian Studies Institute at ANU). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura Tingle is widely regarded as one of Australia’s finest political journalists, with nearly four decades spent in the Canberra Press Gallery covering every government Malcolm Fraser’s to Anthony Albanese’s. But this year she stunned even the most seasoned observers by announcing her departure as 7.30’s Chief Political Correspondent — leaving Parliament House behind to take on a new role as the ABC’s Global Affairs Editor. In this episode of Fourth Estate’s ongoing 'In Profile' series, Laura joined Tina Quinn in studio to reflect on her remarkable career, the shifting culture of political reporting, and what comes next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices