Program: Background Briefing

Background Briefing brings you true stories not everyone will want you to hear.

Airs Sunday at 9am Repeated: Sunday 11pm and Tuesday 2pm

Episodes

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Long Read | Can Wikipedia survive the rise of AI and Trump?

Rhiannon Stevens investigates the existential threats facing Wikipedia from artificial intelligence and Trump’s America.

Published: FriFri 6 Jun 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 25 minutes 14 seconds

Long Read | Australia: burnout capital, or how to get a career break right

This week, Annie Louey discovers what happens when your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing means your career is no longer worth the money.

Published: 30 May 2025Fri 30 May 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 20 minutes 59 seconds

05 Agents of Influence | The letters journalists fear

There’s something shaping what appears in your newsfeed that you might not be aware of. Reporter Gina McKeon investigates.

Published: 24 May 2025Sat 24 May 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 36 minutes 39 seconds

04 Agents of Influence | The powerbroker unseated by ‘traitors’

This week, reporter Annika Blau gets the inside story of a union powerbroker’s rise, and the people who risked it all to stop her

Published: 16 May 2025Fri 16 May 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 37 minutes 20 seconds

03 Agents of Influence | The man whose name is all over Sydney

Take a stroll around Sydney and you'll find his name on many venerated buildings. But this man, a 101-year-old billionaire, has also created machines that risk ruining their users' lives.

Published: 9 May 2025Fri 9 May 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 42 minutes 9 seconds

02 Agents of Influence | The Billionaire's New Sport

A former oil tycoon has just bought the streaming rights to Australia’s great homegrown sports, the AFL and NRL. This week, reporter Marty Smiley investigates one of the richest men in the world - who is Len Blavatnik?

Published: 2 May 2025Fri 2 May 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 41 minutes 51 seconds

01 Agents of Influence | The PM's secret strategists

Millennial content makers can influence election outcomes from their home studios. After witnessing the power of podcasts in the US election, our political leaders are lining up to get a piece of the action.

Published: 17 Apr 2025Thu 17 Apr 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 36 minutes 16 seconds

Introducing... Agents of Influence

They're not household names. But they wield serious power under the radar.

Published: 16 Apr 2025Wed 16 Apr 2025 at 1:00am

Duration: 37 seconds

Long Read | How deepfakes, nudes and teen misogyny have changed growing up

This week, Bri Lee investigates tech-assisted gendered abuse by schoolboys against their peers and teachers.

Published: 11 Apr 2025Fri 11 Apr 2025 at 7:00pm

Duration: 22 minutes 23 seconds

Long Read | The church’s disappearing women

Three decades after the first ordinations of women to the Anglican priesthood, women are still struggling to reach leadership — and now the congregation is changing too.

Published: 4 Apr 2025Fri 4 Apr 2025 at 6:00pm

Duration: 20 minutes 37 seconds

Features

'Traitors will get what's coming': How a powerbroker fell from her throne

Union boss Diana Asmar had a clear message for her branch: The traitors who had betrayed her had no idea what was coming. But it was she who took the fall.

A woman with long bright red hair, wearing all black, walks down the street, smiling.

Published: 23 May 2025Fri 23 May 2025 at 10:35pmby Annika Blau

澳洲富豪家族如何改写他们的赌博机印记

莱恩·安斯沃斯通过角子机建立了一个帝国——这种设备永远改变了赌博。过去几十年里，他悄悄将注意力和权力转向了慈善事业。

Len Ainsworth poses for a portrait at a table in a dark room with poker machines behind him.

Published: 15 May 2025Thu 15 May 2025 at 1:14pm

How one of Australia's richest families is rewriting its pokies legacy

Len Ainsworth built an empire on poker machines — devices that changed gambling forever. Over the last few decades, he's quietly shifted his attention, and power, towards philanthropy.

Published: 12 May 2025Mon 12 May 2025 at 12:53amby Maddison Connaughton

Australia's best sports rights in the hands of a Soviet-born, former oil tycoon

He lives opposite British royalty. He's on Ukraine's sanctions list. His company is backed by Saudi petrodollars. Now he's taking over from Rupert Murdoch as the new owner of Foxtel.

Published: 21 May 2025Wed 21 May 2025 at 2:45amby Marty Smiley

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