The Morning Edition
The Morning Edition (formerly Please Explain) brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.
Episodes
Happy New Year.
We’re on a break over summer - lucky us - before we return at the end of January for another year of Inside Politics.
Today, we’re returning to an episode recorded in the wake of the divisive ‘March for Australia’ protests, which became the vehicle for a hodgepodge of causes, including immigration, an issue that would lead to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s sacking from the frontbench.
...Remember how there was a federal election?
In this episode, we return to Anthony Albanese's astonishing landslide victory in May with former chief political correspondent David Crowe and senior economics correspondent Shane Wright.
Crowe and Wright reflect on how history-making the win was, and what Albanese will do with his mandate.
Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf...
Today, we return to a good news story as we kick off a new year. The fame of Robert Irwin, the son of ‘crocodile hunter’ Steve Irwin, was supercharged recently when he won one of America's top reality television shows, Dancing with the Stars.
Our culture editor-at-large Michael Idato delves into the Irwin family empire and how Robert Irwin’s brand of “nice” won over America.
And we hope you have a...
As we say goodbye to 2025, we can only hope we also see an end to the swirling chaos of multiple wars that raged across the world, and in the case of the Israel-Gaza conflict, fractured so much of our society.
Today we return to a special episode with British barrister and human rights lawyer Phillipe Sands, who defended Palestine at the International Court of Justice, on how to retain compassion and integrity in our fragmented wor...
A tax on tobacco seemed like a great idea to deter smokers and raise revenue.
But, as the price of cigarettes soared, major criminal organisations saw an opening, and began to pump cheap, illegal cigarettes into Australia.
And violence came along with it as warring gangs fought for control of the trade in our major cities.
Today, with your Morning Edition team on a summer break, we return to an episode with senior...
Hi and Merry Christmas!
Your Inside Politics team is on a little hiatus over summer before we return at the end of January.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy some of our favourite episodes of the year, starting with a trip down memory lane to election night with our former chief political correspondent David Crowe before he passed the baton to BFF of the podcast Paul Sakkal.
We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January.
It was another big year for the human headline that was U.S President Donald Trump, and political and international editor Peter Hartcher was an essential listen each week on our podcast as we tried to make sense of it all.
This episode was recorded in May, just as Trump was poised to introduce what he called his ‘big beau...
We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January.
Well, the mushroom murders was the criminal case of the year and in this episode, we take you inside the court on the day Erin Patterson was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Patterson received a triple-murder conviction for the now infamous lunch of beef wellington that a jury trial found she laced with death cap mush...
We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January.
Today, we return to an episode recorded in October with senior columnist Jacqueline Maley, when more torrid tales emerged of the former prince, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, and his connection to sex offender and disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein.
When this was recorded, the royal had just been stripped of his Duke of Yor...
Hi, it’s Samantha Selinger-Morris here, the host of The Morning Edition. We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns mid-January.
This one is about Belle Gibson.
One of the original wellness influencers, Gibson claimed to have healed herself from terminal cancer through healthy eating. The problem was, she never had cancer.
This episode was recorded shortly bef...
In this bonus episode of Inside Politics, former primer minister Tony Abbott joins host Jacqueline Maley and chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal.
Abbott has penned a new book, Australia: A History, describing a more positive view of our past. He also discusses the current political and cultural challenges facing the Liberal Party, as well as reflectin...
This week it feels wrong to talk about politics in the wake of the horrific antisemitic massacre at Bondi Beach on Sunday. Australians and Sydneysiders in particular are still trying to make sense of the senseless.
But the fact is that the response to the massacre has been deeply political, and things got divisive very quickly.
So this week on Inside Politics we are going to discuss the political response to the inciden...
On the evening of the shooting at Bondi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian” – that was indeed proven when the entire community sprung into action, those who ran towards the disaster, not away from it.
There are tales of heroism, like the couple who first tried to stop the gunmen and paid with their lives, the man who single-handedly ...
When Michael Visontay heard of the shootings at Bondi Beach on Sunday, his first instinct was to call his son, who often swam there. Then came the sickening feeling of dread, when his son didn’t answer his phone.
Something that thickened this dread even further, was a family history that taught him to always be alert to possible threats. His father and grandfather survived the Holocaust after living in concentration camps. Hi...
We’re releasing an additional episode today featuring one of our reporters, Elias Visontay, who was at Bondi Beach with a friend on the day of the terror attack. Elias recounts his first-hand experience as the gunmen fired bullets at the unexpecting crowd.
You can read his story on our websites here.
And if you’re struggling with the bad news at the moment, support is available on Lifeline 13 11 14 or NSW Health mental ...
Sunday’s Bondi Beach terrorist attack, which targeted a Hanukkah celebration, was the worst mass shooting in Australia since Port Arthur. Some in the Jewish community have been fearing a deadly attack for years.
This episode features the stories of witnesses, such as reporter Elias Visontay, and mother-of-three Jacqui Cohen, who took cover with her 12-year-old daughter.
Crime and justice reporter Amber Schultz, who spoke to t...
As we record this on Sunday night, 12 people, including the shooter, have been confirmed dead in a mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, with the New South Wales Police Commissioner declaring it a terrorist incident. The number of dead has since increased to 16, including a child.
Dozens of people had been gathered to mark the first night of Hanukkah, the most joyous holiday on the Jewish calendar, before two gunmen ope...
Today, we're delving into the expenses scandal, if indeed we are calling it a scandal, that has engulfed the Communications Minister Anika Wells. A $100,000 taxpayer funded flight to New York snow-balled into a drip-feed of information about flights to the Formula 1 grand prix, the Boxing Day tests and even a family reunion at Thredbo. All of this dropping at precisely the moment the minister wanted to be talking about th...
The video is, according to those who have seen it, horrific to watch. Two sailors cling to the debris of a blown-up boat in the Caribbean, when they’re killed by a US military strike.
This occurred after the first strike on their boat failed to kill everybody on board.
It has sparked outrage, and led to accusations – by Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike – that the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth,...
Our mastheads have discovered that a number of sex offenders have committed crimes - in our communities - after serving their time in prison.
And here’s the thing. They committed these crimes while under a “supervision order”. This little known order, issued by a court, is meant to keep a “ring fence” around these known offenders, to keep tabs on them and monitor their movement. But it has also served ...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.
"SmartLess" with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!