The Morning Edition

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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.

20 HRS AGO

Best of 2025: A Labor 'landslide' and disaster for Dutton

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. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

25 min
1 DAY AGO

Best of 2025: Is this the beginning of the end of the American empire?

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 beautiful bill’, which was predicted to tip government debt over the one trillion mark. What did it matter? Because, Hartcher argues, these figures point to an empire in decline. Hartcher explores what it would mean if the United States ceased to be a great power, and what it would take to bring America back from the brink. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

17 min
2 DAYS AGO

Best of 2025: The sentencing of mushroom cook Erin Patterson

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 mushrooms and served to her in-laws. Since we recorded this episode with court reporter Erin Pearson, Patterson has applied for leave to appeal her convictions, which is yet to be decided. But this episode addresses the big question after the sentencing, which was why she was granted the opportunity of parole. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

26 min
3 DAYS AGO

Best of 2025: Is Prince Andrew an existential crisis for the monarchy?

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 York and Prince title. British MPs have since announced a parliamentary inquiry into the Crown Estate, after revelations the former prince had not paid rent on his mansion for more than 20 years. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

25 min
4 DAYS AGO

Best of 2025: Belle Gibson's cancer con

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 before the release of the worldwide hit television series Apple Cider Vinegar, which was based on the work of two of our journalists, Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, in exposing Gibson’s cancer con. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

29 min
5 DAYS AGO

Tony Abbott on running for Senate, AUKUS and cultural ‘self-loathing’

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 reflecting on his own political career, including his relationship with Julia Gillard and the accusations of misogyny. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

43 min
18 DEC

Anger in the aftermath: Albanese and the Bondi attack

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 incident and how it might affect our national life in the months and years to come. Jacqueline Maley is joined by political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

24 min
17 DEC

Courage and kindness in the face of the Bondi attack

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 wrestled the rifle out of the shooter’s hands and those who shielded their loved ones and strangers from bullets. Today, chief reporter Jordan Baker, on the acts of bravery and kindness at Bondi. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

18 min

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TRAILER

Introducing: Diagnosing Murder

For decades, families in Australia and overseas, have been accused of one of the worst crimes imaginable. Diagnosing Murder is an investigative podcast about parents who've had their children taken away, sat in the dock and even done time in prison. All for something they insist they didn't do – shake their baby. Can we trust the science behind shaken baby syndrome? Or are innocent people being locked up for a crime they never committed? Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/diagnosing-murder/id1843555473Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3LqYqSCZHW4vtA0yhiaJKB?si=f8c56f4b638b4a24Listen on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrLulycax358g-04ndbBaBg3ED4Dnyv0S&si=CVXIqoUI6AJ6DD5x Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

S1

•

4 min

Samantha Selinger-Morris

Host
Natassia Chrysanthos

Guest
Michael Visontay

Guest
Elias Visontay

Guest
Jordan Baker

Guest
Paul Sakkal

Guest
James Massola

Guest
Andrew Bell

Guest

3.9

out of 5

1,223 Ratings

Genocide episode

31 Aug

MarnieEd68

Brilliant episode on genocide was waiting though for the balance of talking about our own history and Tasmania…..left me feeling an opportunity lost for education and reflection
More Peter Hartcher

10 Apr

Light Pulse

Peter Hartcher’s contribution on current tariff situation greatly valued.
Please pay attention to pronunciation (2)

21 Aug

User40342

I refer to the episode on 21:8/2026. Dear Samantha Salinger-Morris, please pay attention to your speech. It is ‘meeting’, not ‘meetingk’. Over the years, I have caught you adding ‘k’ to the end of ‘ing’. I have also given feedback a few times to The Age before. Please pay more attention to English pronunciation.
Quality variable

3 Aug

Marlie8424

Sometimes this podcast is really worth listening to, but it depends on the quality of the guests. Today’s episode on the four day working week was so poor, I wonder how it passed muster.

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.