Podcast
Background Briefing
Hosted by ABC Australia · EN
Background Briefing is the ABC's flagship investigative journalism podcast. Its award-winning investigations and documentaries expose cover-ups, corruption, real-life mysteries, whistleblowing, crime, fraud and miscarriages of justice — often before these stories receive mainstream attention.
The Background Briefing podcast brings you true stories not everyone will want you to hear, told by trusted reporters across Australia.
This Australian podcast makes investigative journalism bingeable. From scams and fraud to schooling and health scandals, tech and social media digs, police exposes and various unsolved cases, each episode of the Background Briefing podcast is a must-listen.
Recent series include:
Hometown Boys exposed how a terrible crime fractured a local community around a local football club.
The Invisible Killer: a forensic investigation into unexplained deaths in aged care after a doctor makes an unusual discovery.
The Favourite: how a schoolyard secret stayed hidden for years.
Stop and Search, which uncovered the mechanics of power and police accountability.
Before and After investigated medical hype, telehealth, body image, cosmetic procedures and consumer risk.
Beef: how small feuds escalate into serious disputes.
34episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Beef | Battle for the Blue Zones 2
2w ago00:34:30Tap to summarizeYou may have heard the strange story about the man who cheated death. Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given just months to live, he moved home to die in peace on the idyllic Greek island of Ikaria. But he didn't die. He lived for decades, and his miraculous recovery became one of the most shared stories of the Blue Zones movement, a prime example of the island's rare power to keep death at bay. There's just one problem. How much is actually known about this mysterious death-defying man?
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Beef | Battle for the Blue Zones
3w ago00:33:22Tap to summarizeYou've heard there are these enchanted places around the world where people often live past 100, thanks to lifestyles the rest of us envy. They're called Blue Zones, and over two decades the idea has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry that sells you their secrets of longevity. But then an Australian scientist started digging into the data behind the legend, and decided something didn't add up.
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The dark reality of Australia's AI dream factory
Jun 1800:33:24Tap to summarizeIt’s been billed “the Netflix of AI.” A little-known Australian startup running an online service, boasting more than 20 million users worldwide. It promises to bring your fantasies to life with realistic AI companions you design and control. What reporter Josh Robertson discovered was something more disturbing: characters that appear as young as 14 and 15 years old, presented for adult role-play, and a company unable to stop them appearing.
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03 Tammy's Story | New Asylums
Jun 1100:32:54Tap to summarizeFor a while, Tammy's death looks like a one-off. Then an email lands in Kirstie Wellauer's inbox that changes everything.
Transcribe →02 Tammy's Story | Searching for Safety
Jun 300:32:26Tap to summarizeTammy Shipley walked into a police station and asked to be locked up. She just wanted to be safe.
Transcribe →01 Tammy's Story | The Red Cup
May 2700:30:00Tap to summarizeTammy's under 24-hour surveillance. Her family can't reach her. Then she starts drinking water from a red cup — and nobody understands what they're watching until it's too late.
Transcribe →Introducing | Tammy's Story
May 1400:01:19Tap to summarizeTammy Shipley asked to be arrested so she could feel safe. After she was placed under 24-hour surveillance, something terrible took place. A new three-part series by Kirstie Wellauer and Joanna McCarthy investigates how it unfolded.A loving mother of five, Tammy could really make her kids laugh. But she'd started to believe she was in danger — that someone was out to get her. A couple of weeks before Christmas, she walked into a Sydney police station looking for protection. She asked to be arrested and just wanted to feel safe. She was put under 24-hour surveillance. Then, over the course of several hours, something terrible took place. Something no one noticed. Tammy's Story is a three-part investigation into how this could have happened.
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03 In Search of the Missing Artist | The Name
Apr 2400:32:44Tap to summarizeJean Paul Mangin is a nom de plume, an alias, a fake name. But no one seems to know that. So why would a commercial gallery – a family-run business – go to such extreme lengths to protect the identity of its artist?
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02 In Search of the Missing Artist | The Plastic
Apr 1700:34:19Tap to summarizeThe only clue to Jean Paul Mangin's true identity is hiding in his art. Unlike everything else about the elusive French sculptor, the material he works with is right there for anyone to see — giant, flat sheets of plastic, in vivid colours and glossy finishes. Perhaps if reporter Julia Bergin can find out where they're coming from, she can find him too. And it’s that trail that leads her to a noisy factory floor, where another artist has been making strikingly similar work for years.
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01 In Search of the Missing Artist | The Sculptor
Apr 1100:40:17Tap to summarizeThe sales pitch goes that Jean Paul Mangin is a reclusive Parisian sculptor whose works are internationally acclaimed. His pieces sell quickly through one particular Australian gallery, sought after by trendy interior designers. But gallery staff are starting to ask questions. Why is Jean Paul Mangin uncontactable? Why can’t they find any evidence of his international credentials? And why do his works show up - sometimes in a single layer of bubble-wrap - within days of being commissioned?
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