Journo unpacks the news, so you understand how it's made, disseminated and consumed. Ride shotgun with the world's best journalists as they explore the stories behind the headlines. Nick Bryant brings in-depth analysis of the issues, opportunities and challenges facing journalists and the media industry. Journo is brought to you by Deadset Studios.
Playing piano in a warzone – Editor Alan Rusbridger on spies, spooks, and breaking the biggest stories of our time
Alan Rusbridger was the editor of The Guardian newspaper when a whistle blower called Edward Snowden reached out with documents suggesting the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US was spying on its own civilians. The extraordinary claims landed them in hot water with governments in both the US and the UK, and ultimately forced Snowden into exile in Russia where he remains today. Rusbridger is now the editor of Prospect Magazine, the chair of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and a member of Facebook’s Oversight Board. He’s been at the forefront of journalism’s transition to the digital and social world – all while juggling this century’s most complex stories in news.
24 Aug 2022
If it bleeds, bin it — Will your tired news audience click on a constructive news story instead?
Nick Bryant speaks to four solutions journalists on how to re-engage gloom-fatigued news audiences.
10 Aug 2022
From tip-off to pay-off — Inside the minds of the world’s best investigative reporters
Nick Bryant speaks to two very different investigative journalists about the tools of their trade.
27 Jul 2022
From drum and bass to hard news at a viral pace — How Ros Atkins became the voice of reason in global news
“It's the power of the story. It's the same thing, whether it's drum and bass, or much more serious news. If you tell stories that people want to hear the end of, they are much, much more likely to consume your work, whatever it is."
Ros Atkins’ relentless experimentation with finding an audience means his stories aren’t just devoured by the news cycle. His team at the BBC produce a particular type of viral video, one that starts a conversation and has staying power.
On his show BBC Outside Source, Ros seems to have perfected the art of the explainer — reports that work just as well on digital platforms as they do on TV.
In this episode of Journo, Nick Bryant sits down with Ros, the man they call the BBC’s ‘Explainer-in-Chief', to understand the precision that goes into making his explainers must-watch content.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Host: Nick Bryant
Executive Producer: Rachel Fountain
Producers: Grace Pashley and Britta Jorgensen
Sound Design: Krissy Miltiadou
Managing Editor: Kellie Riordan
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ho
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
13 Jul 2022
Geopolitical football — How cash and culture are shifting the goalposts for sports journalism
“I wasn't just doing what was right. I was doing what was journalistically correct.”
Veteran sports reporter Jim Trotter was doing a live cross for ESPN when the host began describing American footballer Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the national anthem as “disrespectful to the flag”. Jim had a choice — to let the host’s opinions go unchecked or to report the facts.
As sports arenas more frequently become platforms for cultural debate, reporters like Jim have expanded their old beats from player drafts and starting positions to include athlete activism and political commentary.
From the taking the knee to boycotting the Olympics, it’s become increasingly common for off-field controversies and cultural shifts to make their way onto those hallowed grounds.
But as the clubs and codes grow richer, while many media outlets become poorer, is there now a power imbalance that’s impacting our coverage?
In the latest episode of Journo Nick Bryant asks the NBC’s Rebecca Lowe (https://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/bio/rebecca-lowe/), NFL Network’s Jim Trotter (https://twitter.com/JimTrotter_NFL?s=20&t=XOJutQd8FWM1WNSGoGQzAg) and cricket writer Gideon Haigh (https://www.gideonhaigh.com/): when back page stories are increasingly front-page affairs, can sports journalism still primarily be about sport?
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Host: Nick Bryant
Executive Producer: Rachel Fountain
Producers: Grace Pashley and Britta Jorgensen
Sound Design: Krissy Miltiadou
Managing Editor: Kellie Riordan
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ho
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
29 Jun 2022
How Leigh Sales made it to the top of Australian news
“I’ve always stopped to think — well, you're a little brat from the back blocks of Brisbane and you're about to interview Paul McCartney. That is really rare. It’s very, very special.”
Leigh Sales is a towering figure in Australian journalism, and after almost 12 years as the anchor of the ABC’s flagship current affairs program, 7.30, she has decided it is time for something new.
She’s built her reputation on forensic cross-examination of prime ministers, as an award-winning author, a one-time wedding singer and the co-host of a hugely popular podcast.
Now transitioning to the next stage of her career, Leigh’s ready to generously share her own career regrets, for the benefit of the next generation of journalists.
In this episode of Journo, Nick Bryant sits down with Leigh Sales for a wide-ranging exit interview, with rare insights into Leigh’s working process and how her grandmother’s words have kept her focused when the critics take aim.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Host: Nick Bryant
Executive Producer: Rachel Fountain
Producers: Grace Pashley and Britta Jorgensen
Sound Design: Krissy Miltiadou
Managing Editor: Kellie Riordan
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ho
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
15 Jun 2022
Activism or accuracy — As climate change disrupts the planet, should it upend journalism as well?
In 2021, News Corp’s tabloids in Australia made a stunning announcement.
For the month leading up to the Glasgow climate summit, they would be running a nationwide campaign on how to tackle climate change.
Cries of hypocrisy rang out from pundits all over — including News Corps’ own — for this seeming about-face on the white-hot issue.
So, was it a flash in the pan, or was it a turning point in climate change reporting of the most influential papers in Australia, from one of the biggest publishers in the world?
And what does it matter anyway when you’re reporting from Polynesia, where you’ve been telling the story for decades, as international media fly in, tell you that your island is sinking, and then fly out?
Look closely and you’ll notice journalists are finding new ways to tell the defining story of our time — even as the water is lapping at their door.
In this episode of Journo, Nick Bryant talks sinking islands, columnists in denial and "patronising the messenger" with guests Ben English, editor of The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Editor of Pacific Environment Weekly and Andrew McCormick, Deputy Director of Covering Climate Now.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Host: Nick Bryant
Executive Producer: Rachel Fountain
Producers: Grace Pashley and Britta Jorgensen
Sound Design: Krissy Miltiadou
Managing Editor: Kellie Riordan
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ho
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
26 May 2022
Get in the bin “gotcha” — A vote for change in political reporting
Where to now for political journalism?
18 May 2022
From TikTok to Telegram — What is the war in Ukraine teaching journalists?
“I always say in journalism that everything has changed and nothing has changed," says BBC foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet, who reported from Ukraine's capital Kyiv as Russian tanks rolled into the country.
The war in Ukraine shows us that history never ends, and journalists are taking extraordinary risks in composing the first draft.
A key battle in this conflict is playing out online, with misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda rife, as both sides take to their phones to share their experiences of the war.
So how are newsrooms countering the flood of misinformation, while also using new platforms like TikTok and Telegram in their own reporting? And where does old-fashioned eye-witness reportage fit into it all?
In the first episode of Season 2 of Journo, host Nick Bryant asks what lessons we are learning from the kind of conflict we hoped had been banished to the past.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
11 May 2022
Journo is back
For the journalists writing the first records of history, this past year has been one for the ages.
In season 2 of Journo, foreign correspondents are pulling on their flak jackets and scouring new platforms like TikTok and Telegram to report on the war in Ukraine — and local reporters are taking huge risks to stay in their homes and bear witness to the atrocities of war.
It’s time to unpack the tactics used to get politicians off script in the Australian federal election.
We'll dive deep into the craft of investigative journalism and look at the geopolitical events that have forced back page sports reporters to become front-page players in international reporting.
Follow Journo on your favourite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Host: Nick Bryant
Executive Producer: Rachel Fountain
Producers: Grace Pashley & Britta Jorgensen
Sound Design: Krissy Miltiadou
Managing Editor: Kellie Riordan
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ho
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
15 Dec 2021
Clairvoyants and correspondents — Where political journalism gets it wrong
Brexit, Trump, the 2019 Australian election: why do reporters misread their nations' mood?
1 Dec 2021
The story-breaker — The remarkable rise of Jonathan Swan
He is one of Washington’s most recognisable and influential journalists, who became even more well-known thanks to his facial expressions in that interview with US President Donald Trump in 2020.
But it wasn’t an easy road for political reporter Jonathan Swan. (https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
The Aussie print journalist’s first ever TV interview was also with President Trump — only a couple of years before his Emmy-award winning one. Only that first interview was definitely NOT a critical success!
So how does this Axios journalist view the peaks and troughs of his career?
Swan attributes his success to constantly honing his reporting craft, and working harder than anyone else in one of the toughest rounds in journalism.
But he didn’t just work hard, he worked smarter — eschewing the daily press briefings to work his contacts, which led to him becoming one of the most reliable story-breakers of the Trump presidency.
Host Nick Bryant gets the inside track on the journalism of Jonathan Swan, and what’s behind his rise in Washington.
Grab your press pass: Journo helps you understand how your news is made, disseminated, and consumed.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
17 Nov 2021
Steve Coll on journalism in this disrupted world
“We have to recognise that the truth is often complex. And it's often elusive in some respects. And it's nuanced. That's not an excuse for enabling liars or for being complicit in propaganda campaigns.”
From inside the Washington Post on the day the Drudge Report cracked open the Clinton scandal, through the digital disruption of the past 20 years, double Pulitzer Prize winner and Dean of Columbia Journalism School Steve Coll unpacks how the business of journalism has undergone a transformation over his working life.
He walks us through his years in newsrooms, as a correspondent in South Asia, to leading the team at the Washington Post and Columbia.
He talks partisanship and false equivalence (“both sides journalism”), the dominance of Facebook and Google, and whether the media is responsible for the election of Donald Trump.
Host Nick Bryant asks Steve Coll about his hopes for the latest generation of journalists, the missteps the industry has made in the past, and dissects how the world’s best journalists can continue to report in unstable times.
Steve Coll is a member of JNI’s International Advisory Council.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
3 Nov 2021
Live from your living room — reporting from the frontlines of the pandemic
Reporting from the frontlines of the pandemic
20 Oct 2021
The Troublemaker and the Terrier
The trials and triumphs of local and regional journalism in a time of news deserts.
6 Oct 2021
Who’s really listening — Reporting when your phone is the enemy
“If you're targeted by Pegasus, you see nothing, you smell nothing, you taste nothing. You’re minding your own business, doing whatever it is that you do with your phone. And then it’s infected.”
It might sound cloak-and-dagger, but cyber security expert John Scott-Railton says spyware poses a very real threat to journalists’ ability to do their jobs.
The Pegasus Project, an international coalition of journalists, has found around 200 journalists are potential targets for surveillance by the malicious spyware.
Founding Editor of India’s The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan was among them. He received the disturbing news his phone had been infected, giving remote users access to his every text, call... and contact.
“As journalists, phones are an extension of our bodies... And what we found is that the sense of intrusion and violation is profound.”
But does the fear of surveillance have the potential to be as dangerous to a free press as the spyware itself?
In this episode of Journo, host Nick Bryant investigates the technology being used to monitor and intimidate those holding power to account — and finds a coalition of allies who’ve banded together to resist the digital incursion.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Grab your press pass: Journo helps you understand how your news is made, disseminated, and consumed.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
22 Sept 2021
WeCensor — Getting news into and out of China
China is closing its doors to foreign journalists just as it becomes the most interesting story in the world.
So, is this all part of a strategy by China to control its own news at home and abroad?
But with geopolitical tensions rising, China is not a place the world can afford to ignore.
Nationalistic media reports produced under the watchful eye of the Chinese government are stirring suspicion of foreign media among Chinese people.
Meanwhile, more than one million Australians identify as part of the Chinese diaspora — and a large proportion rely solely on tightly controlled platforms like WeChat for their news.
In this episode of Journo, host Nick Bryant investigates how journalists can get accurate information to Australia’s Chinese diaspora, and whether it’s possible for foreign news organisations to get authentic coverage out of China without boots on the ground.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
Grab your press pass: Journo helps you understand how your news is made, disseminated, and consumed.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
8 Sept 2021
Journalists will be free to report — and other lies the Taliban tells
“A brilliant idea cooked up in Doha” — why Taliban 2.0 doesn’t fool Afghan journalists
2 Sept 2021
Introducing Journo
Grab your press pass: Journo helps you understand how your news is made, disseminated, and consumed.
After a long career as a BBC international correspondent, Nick Bryant has returned to Australia — a former posting — at a time of unprecedented media disruption and polarised politics.
“I’ve seen the media industry being overtaken by so many changes and the truth is, I'm still trying to make sense of them myself,” Bryant said.
“I don’t expect to come up with all the answers, nowhere near, but hopefully we'll ask some of the right questions.”
In Journo, Bryant explores how journalism around the world is changing, where it’s heading, and why more people are questioning the media’s commitment to truth.
Journo will take you inside Afghanistan. Foreign reporters flee, local journalists are in fear for their lives, and the Taliban has returned armed not just with weapons, but with spin and more sophisticated communications tactics.
Later episodes of Journo will ask whether reporters can trust the most important device in their journalistic toolkit — the phone — in an age of surveillance, and how journalists can report on rising global superpower China when most western media has been booted out.
Follow Journo in your podcast app so you don’t miss an episode.
Journo is a production of Deadset Studios (https://www.deadsetstudios.com/). This episode was made with support from the Judith Neilson Institute (https://jninstitute.org/).
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Contact Journo
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
