Background Briefing

Episodi

• Long Read | The Girl Who Vanished From Her Bed: Part One 17.07.2026 21min

  Could new leads solve one of Australia’s most haunting cold cases, the disappearance of Eloise Worledge? This is part one of Maddison Connaughton's investigation, a collaboration with ABC Long Read.
• Beef | Battle for the Blue Zones 2 03.07.2026 34min

  You 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? 
• Beef | Battle for the Blue Zones 26.06.2026 33min

  You'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.  
• The dark reality of Australia's AI dream factory 19.06.2026 33min

  It’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. 
• 03 Tammy's Story | New Asylums 12.06.2026 32min

  For a while, Tammy's death looks like a one-off. Then an email lands in Kirstie Wellauer's inbox that changes everything. 
• 02 Tammy's Story | Searching for Safety 03.06.2026 32min

  Tammy Shipley walked into a police station and asked to be locked up. She just wanted to be safe. 
• 01 Tammy's Story | The Red Cup 27.05.2026 30min

  Tammy'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.
• Introducing | Tammy's Story 15.05.2026 1min

  Tammy 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.
• 03 In Search of the Missing Artist | The Name 25.04.2026 32min

  Jean 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?      
• 02 In Search of the Missing Artist | The Plastic 18.04.2026 34min

  The 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. 
• 01 In Search of the Missing Artist | The Sculptor 12.04.2026 40min

  The 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?
• Introducing | In Search of the Missing Artist 07.04.2026 1min

  For years, art buyers have been told that this man is an internationally acclaimed, intensely private Parisian sculptor. His bold, brightly coloured plastic works are available through one Melbourne gallery, and they're selling fast. But there's a problem. The artist, Jean Paul Mangin, has no website, no social media, and no discernible presence in France. His sculptures arrive in Melbourne wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap, just days after being commissioned. When gallery staff start asking questions, they're told he's not to be contacted directly. That's when reporter Julia Bergin steps in — following a trail of clues from the bourgeois backstreets off the Champs-Elysées to an empty graveyard in country Victoria.
• 03 The Road to Bondi | Deepfake 27.03.2026 34min

  How did a wounded Bondi survivor become the face of a global deepfake conspiracy in less than 24 hours? Arsen Ostrovsky was celebrating Chanukah at Bondi Beach when the first shots rang out. A bullet grazed his head, and as he lay bleeding on the ground, his first thought was his wife and children. Not knowing whether the danger had passed, he took selfies to show them he was alive. Within hours, one of the images was circulating across social media.  Arsen was then swept up in a wave of disinformation that recast him not as a victim, but as a performer: a “crisis actor” faking his wounds to manufacture sympathy for Israel. The deepfake conspiracy spread with startling speed. In less than 24 hours, Arsen had gone from shooting survivor to accused hoaxer.   In this episode, reporter Josh Robertson trace how that happened. They follow the lie from its point of origin through the networks that amplified it: far-right Telegram channels, fringe conspiracy theorists on Reddit and Instagram, Russian propaganda outlets, and beyond. It is a story about surviving something catastrophic, then being told by strangers that it never happened. 
• 02 The Road to Bondi | A Test of Character 20.03.2026 32min

  This man fled Iran after being imprisoned and tortured for protesting the regime. Known only as AB, he came to Australia hoping to start again — and, in many ways, he did. He found love and started a family. But he also made poor choices, fell into drugs and became violent towards his partner. Now his future in Australia is in jeopardy. He was living with those consequences when the Bondi terror attack unfolded around him. He ran towards the gunfire, and risked his life to help others. Now the country that once gave him refuge wants to deport him. 
• 01 The Road to Bondi | Father and Son 13.03.2026 42min

  You think you know the story. You know how it ended. But you don’t know how it began. In the first episode of The Road to Bondi, reporter Josh Robertson traces the decades-long path that led a father and son to carry out their plan. He takes us from the narrow streets of old Hyderabad in India, where a young man grew up in a respectable family, to the western Sydney suburbs, where he begins to unravel. 
• TRAILER — Introducing The Road to Bondi 06.03.2026 1min

  In an ordinary Australian suburb, a father and son are secretly planning something terrible. One fateful summer evening, their path brings them crashing into the lives of strangers from around the world whose own stories haven’t yet been told. You might think you know the story, but there's so much more to tell. In a new three-part series, Background Briefing investigates how the road to Bondi began long before the first shots rang out.
• 06 Hometown Boys | Not the only one 20.02.2026 38min

  Insiders from the Harrow-Balmoral football club decide to break the code of silence. For Elise, it’s time to rebuild her life. But her story inspires other women to emerge with their own troubling accounts of the town’s club culture. When the convicted men were freed, Balmoral threw them a hero’s welcome; after everything, what was actually learned? 
• 05 Hometown Boys | 'Luke, Maybe' 13.02.2026 30min

  A key witness submits a startling new statement that topples the guilty verdict and forces a retrial. This time, the men accused will not give evidence. But Lisa Hutchins, the trusted bush nurse will take the stand again — now for the defence.
• 04 Hometown Boys | The Trial 05.02.2026 27min

  As the criminal trial unfolds, witnesses from Balmoral waver on the stand, and the judge is "taken aback". The courtroom is heaving with supporters of the accused but the verdict is not what they're expecting.
• 03 Hometown Boys | The 'Mayoress of Balmoral' 27.01.2026 31min

  A respected bush nurse with close ties to the accused becomes a key police witness. As the investigation quietly gathers pace, locals start to choose sides and the family of the victim feels ostracised.