My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Runda Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadigl Country. I like the Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strain island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Monday, the fourth of September. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
I'm Zara Seidler.
It is a big week for the Daily Oas because this week we officially go from a media company with an Instagram, TikTok website and podcast to a media company with our very own book.
That's right, we share the news with you a few weeks ago that pre sales were open. We've been absolutely blown away by the numbers we've seen on those pre sales. But this week the book will finally be hitting the shells at your favorite bookshop. To celebrate, we thought that in today's Deep Dive, we share a little sneak peek into the audiobook of chapter one and talk you through what that process was like before we get into that, Sam. What's making headlines this morning.
Opposition leader Peter Dudden has said he will hold a referendum on constitutional recognition if the upcoming referendum fails and the Coalition wins the next election. The Coalition supports the recognition of first Nation's people in the Constitution, but not the establishment of a constitutionally enshrined voice advisory body.
Australian house prices have risen for the sixth consecutive month. According to property data firm core Logic. Property values rose by zero point eight percent in August, with Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide experiencing the biggest growth. Hobart was the only capital city where property values fell.
About seventy thousand people are stuck at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada after heavy rain caused flooding across the site. In the statement, festival organizes told participants to conserve food, water and fuel and shelter in a warm, safe space. The festival is scheduled to wrap up today.
And the good news. A volleyball game in the US state of Nebraska has set a new world record for the highest attended women's sport match in history. Over ninety two thousand people watch that volleyball game between the University of Nebraska and Omaha.
So we are just super excited to finally get to the week where the little no silly questions book that could, the little wood idea in our brains is actually going to make it into bookshops.
We're going to feel it, look at it, sign it when no one's looking.
Is that what you're planning on doing in airports or in bookshops that kind of think?
I mean, you're going to kill time somehow. And you have seen my signature. We actually signed a few hundred books the other day for book Topia, and by the end of it, I was writing someone else's name.
It was nice to start with Zara and then with Janis. That was really lovely. But it's actually a really exciting week for us.
We thought that a nice way to introduce you to the book itself would be to play you a little snippet of the audiobook and Sam, what was recording an audiobook like for you?
So?
I have half diagnosed EDDIEHD.
Do you want to talk us through what are half diagnosed?
Casually diagnosed? Okay, the idea of sitting in a small studio box thing.
It's really small for reference, it's like a single person.
Booth, and you can't really miss a word, like you have to go on each individual word and nail It took a long time and took a long time of focusing very hard, and actually that night I sounded a bit like.
Yeah, it was a bit like that. I have a couple of friends who are also publishing books around this time, and I really really resonated with something that Chanel Kontos said, which was that she couldn't stop burping. I don't know what it is. One of our listeners can explain that to me, but it was a really strange thing to experience. We're going to stop rambling now. You're also going to hear my voice for the next couple of minutes, so
I'm especially going to stop rambling. But if you like what you hear and you want to hear more or read more, please go out and buy our book. We're really proud to have it out in the world, and we're really thankful for all your support. Without further ado, here is the introduction to No Silly Questions. Hi Wizara and Sam co founders of The Daily ods, there are
no silly questions. That's where we want to start this news journey with you today with a very simple fact that any question you have about the news is a good one, a worthy one, and we're going to try really hard to answer your questions in this book. The news shouldn't feel overwhelming. Overwhelming either because you're struggling to understand some of the key ideas that lie behind a
recent development. Why should I care about interest rates going up when I don't know why interest rates matter, or because you're reading so much that.
It's all getting on top of you.
The news can, in fact feel like a space you're meant to be in, a space where it's okay for ideas to develop, to be challenged, and where no question is a silly one. Why are two twenty year olds telling me how to feel about the news, we hear you mutter from the other side of this book, A
very good question, dear listener. Well, the answer to that is that we've been trying for the past few years to build a media company that makes everyone feel like the news is for them, even if they're not newspeople. Building the Daily Ohs. In twenty seventeen, we started the Daily Ohs. The mission back then and the one that still drives us today, was to create a news service that empowers young people to engage with the world around them. For years, we'd heard things like young people are lazy
and they don't realize how good they've got it. Yet when we were talking to our friends, all in their twenties, the reality was different. Many felt like there was nowhere for them to get information that was clear, concise, and in their language. Importantly, they weren't out buying papers or surfing the web, and there were no news outlets catering
to a social first generation. And so the Daily ODS was born, the antidote to the opinion first, noisy news cycle, a digestible and bite sized way to consume news which explained the context behind a story, not just the headline of the day. We weren't trying to make people change their daily routines or consumption habits.
Instead, we wanted.
To meet young people where they were and ensure that accurate and factual news was intercepting people mid doom scroll. At the beginning, that looked like uploading five news items to Instagram stories every single day. Despite both of us working in other jobs. Crucially, the fifth story of every bulletin would be a good news story, ensuring the reader ended each interaction with the new news on a positive note. In those early days, though our audience remained very small,
they were phenomenally engaged. This was our training ground where we learned what young people need from their news, how they best understand complex ideas, what traditional outlets expect them to know, and how an issue moves from being a story for the diehard current affairs consumer to a part of everyday conversations we want to take part in. When the COVID nineteen pandemic hit, we knew what to do.
We knew we had to bring the same level of clarity to pandemic news as we had to other stories, and we had to make sense of a seemingly incomprehensible news.
Event for our audience.
Rightly or wrongly, the pandemic forced everyone, regardless of their age, socioeconomic status, race, or religion, to pay attention to the news. Suddenly, news outlets had the answers about where you could go, who you could see, and what you could do. The exponential growth of our audience was a huge responsibility that we didn't take lightly. We wanted to get it right for them, keep them informed with the facts, but also identify.
When something was noise and not news.
It was about towing the line between informing and overwhelming, and it relied on us listening and responding to our audience. Today, that audience has grown considerably, with the Daily Os reaching over one million young Australians every month. We have a daily podcast, newsletter, TikTok video channel, website, and now a book. Our intention for this book is for it to be the world's best cheat sheet for understanding how the world works.
Think of it like a friend in your pocket that you can whip out to explain all the big concepts in life, but in a way that makes sense to you. One challenge with writing the book is the ever changing nature of news. We know how fast things move, from changes in governments and regimes around the world to understanding pa endemics, science and technology. We've tried to include explainers that will stay relevant and to which you can refer when you need to.
Brush up on a topic.
Part of the problem, and therefore part of the reason we wanted to write this book, is that most of us weren't really taught a lot of this stuff growing up. Unless you took an economic subject at high school or university, it's not easy to understand superannuation, tax GST, inflation, GDP, interest rates, tariffs, all currencies. That's not your fault, but it's a problem that can be fixed by taking time
to read explainers on the big questions. You might feel silly asking or don't even know how to go about asking. So we hope you can use this book when you're reading a news story about climate change, politics, technology, war or money. Keep it handy and come back to a specific chapter when you need to. For now, make yourself a cup of tea, find yourself a sunny spot. Let's get into all your questions, the ones you might think are silly.
Thanks for joining us on the Daily OS. If you want to grab a copy of the book, I've put a link in today's show notes. Otherwise you can head to your favorite real life bookstore from tomorrow. We'll be back with a normal episode of The Daily OS tomorrow. Until then, have a great week.