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.
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When patients start unexpectedly dying at a regional hospital, nurse Toni Hoffman takes a big risk to blow the whistle on a negligent surgeon. But years later, it's still unclear why she was ignored for so long.
Kathy Jackson was once heralded as a revolutionary who shone a bright spotlight on union corruption but she too was later found to be a fraudster who had misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in union members' money. So who was the man responsible for blowing the whistle on her? Reporter Annika Blau investigates.
When an electoral officer helps police arrest a popular politician, her life begins to unravel. Her boss would spend more than a decade in prison, but she loses her job, and is even eventually admitted to a mental health institution. Now she’s asking: could he have been stopped earlier? Reporter Tynan King investigates.
A woman has lost the ability to speak and is forced to communicate by blinking. From her hospital bed she tries to blink out a request, but hospital staff refuse to help. Background Briefing can reveal that similar situations are playing out in many public health facilities across Australia, as patients pursue their legal right to die, and healthcare workers say "no".
He left a trail of defect-riddled apartment buildings across Sydney and debts exceeding $600m to his creditors. Police have issued a warrant for his arrest. The NSW Premier has even offered to pay for his flight back to Australia. This week, Background Briefing tracks down the notorious and elusive Jean Nassif, who gives his first exclusive sit-down interview since he left Australia more than a year ago.
Ruby's barely a teenager, and already she's become a champion bull rider. She's also had eight concussions and multiple brain bleeds. Reporter Tynan King investigates how this extreme sport became her obsession — even as it threatens her life.
There are only two witnesses to Brad Balzan's final moments: the two officers who chased him into his backyard. But their accounts of what happened don't match up.
As the investigation into Bradley Balzan's death continues, serious questions are raised about how the country’s largest police force uses its search powers.
Brad Balzan is shot dead in his own backyard after a police encounter goes wrong. In episode two of Stop and Search, a new mini-series by Background Briefing, reporter Paul Farrell asks why was he running away, and why did the officers chase him down?
A 20-year-old is chased by four plain-clothes police officers into his western Sydney backyard. But he hasn't committed a crime. He hasn't even done anything wrong. He's shot twice, and then dies. In a special miniseries by Background Briefing, the final moments that led to this tragic incident are pieced together. The reporter is Paul Farrell.
‘Cities’ are popping up across Bali’s spiritual heartland. Can villagers from Ubud hold back a tsunami of foreign money and preserve the island's culture?
In a nursing home lives an elderly man who is being held against his will. We can’t tell you his name. We can’t tell you his age. We can’t even use his real voice, or the voice of anyone involved in his case. Reporter Anne Connolly investigates what happens when the state rules you're incapable of looking after yourself.
As a teenager, Remy learnt to survive by hustling on the streets of Parramatta. Then she hit the bigtime. Reporter Mahmood Fazal investigates what life is like on the other side of the war on drugs.
Reporter Heidi Davoren provides an extraordinary insight into a parenting dispute, where a mother and father come together after a Family Court psychologist harmed their family.
Queensland authorities failed to heed multiple serious warnings that a young pair of sisters were in danger, before it was too late. Their grieving family is now desperate to understand why. Reporter Alexandra Blucher investigates.
When two infants die after being left inside a hot car, their family seek answers to how this could have happened. Reporter Alexandra Blucher tracks down a child safety officer involved in their case, and hears why she believes the girls' deaths could have been prevented.
"Simone" arrived on a remote island to help asylum seekers. But she witnessed something there that convinced her to leak over 2000 documents. Reporters Paul Farrell and Maddison Conaughton investigate what happened.
Father-of-three Ayman Dhlan started a WhatsApp group to help Australians and their families get out of war-torn Gaza. Now he can barely put his phone down.
It might surprise you to learn that the names of pop stars and fascist dictators have been passed down to generations of Indigenous Australians. Reporter Erin Parke heads to the remote Kimberley to meet a man named Bing Crosby, and find out how it happened.
Natalia had a job at a prestigious university, $120,000 in the bank, a loving partner, and shared custody of her two sons. Then one day, a little over a year later, she woke up in a psychiatric hospital, where doctors told her she was experiencing what’s known as stimulant-induced psychosis.
How the Commonwealth Bank tried to stop a royal commission by using dirt files, intimidation, threats and surveillance against whistleblowers and journalists.
"Simone" arrived on a remote island to help asylum seekers. But she witnessed something there that convinced her to leak over 2000 documents. Reporters Paul Farrell and Maddison Conaughton investigate what happened.
