Insiders (Australian TV program)
| Insiders | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Insiders title card | |
| Genre | Politics, analysis |
| Presented by | David Speers (2020–present) Barrie Cassidy (2001–2019) |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 16 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Samuel Clark |
| Production locations | ABC Southbank Centre, Melbourne |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC ABC News (2010–present) |
| Release | 15 July 2001 – present |
Insiders is an Australian news and talk television program produced by ABC News, and hosted by David Speers.
History
The program debuted on 15 July 2001, hosted by Barrie Cassidy until June 2019. Similar to the Sunday morning talk shows in the United States, Insiders analyses and discusses Australian politics with the use of a panel of political journalists and columnists and interviews with prominent politicians and commentators.
Broadcast on ABC on Sunday mornings at 9am, the program also features many regular commentators from various Australian media outlets and think tanks. The show is part of the ABC's Sunday morning line-up, commencing with Insiders, followed by Offsiders, a sports program initiated[1] and formerly hosted by Cassidy, and now hosted by Kelli Underwood.
Fran Kelly hosted the show while Barrie Cassidy was on long service leave, and Chris Uhlmann, prior to his move to the Nine Network, also hosted the show in Cassidy's absence.
In March 2019, Cassidy announced he would be leaving Insiders after the 2019 Australian election and after eighteen years in the hosting chair.[2] His last show was on 9 June 2019; regular fill-in presenters Fran Kelly and Annabel Crabb alternated hosting duties until the end of the year
In June 2019, David Speers was announced as Cassidy's replacement from 2020.[3]
In June 2020, the program received criticism for having an all-white panel discussing the Black Lives Matter movement.[4] An investigation by Junkee discovered that there seemingly had never been a person of colour on the panel in the show's history.[5] Consequently, ABC journalist Bridget Brennan accepted an invitation to be on the following week's program, seemingly becoming the first non-white person to ever appear on the Insiders panel.[6] Addressing the criticism, Speers admitted the previous week's edition of Insiders lacked an important perspective and that the program needed to do better in having more diverse insights into political debate.[6]
Format
As a Sunday morning talk show, the format of the program usually starts with Cassidy discussing the political issues of the week, followed by an interview with a current Australian political figure, usually an Australian politician. Each week in the studio, Cassidy discusses current political issues with a panel of three commentators/journalists of varying political perspectives.
The 2007 series included small changes to the format of the show: re-ordering the segments, commencing the program with the political interview, followed by "Your Shout". Paul Kelly's discussion (this segment was discontinued in 2010) was then used as a starting point for the panel discussion. "Talking Pictures" continues to provide a break point within the panel discussions, and the show concludes with its customary sign-off where Cassidy asks the panel members for their "final observation and predictions".
In 2011, the usual program format began with a brief monologue from Cassidy followed by a brief video summary of the major events of the preceding week. Then Cassidy reviews the Sunday papers with the studio panel before moving on to the studio guest. If the guest is present in the studio the interview is introduced by a short video clip relating to the first interview question. The interview usually lasts until midway through the hour and is followed by a video clip which concentrates on events surrounding a major news topic of the week. This is followed by a studio discussion between Cassidy and his studio guests. Cassidy introduces "Talking Pictures" towards the end of the hour, which is followed by more studio discussion. The show usually winds up with Cassidy introducing amusing or otherwise interesting media clips followed by an observation or prediction from each panel member before Cassidy ends the show with a final media clip or two.
The program's editor, Huw Parkinson, has produced a number of video mashups compositing the faces of political figures onto films and other pop culture footage.[7] Parkinson's videos won him a Walkley Award for multimedia storytelling in 2015.[8]
Regular segments
"Your Shout"
The "Your Shout" segment (which was dropped in 2010) gave a member or group of members of the public a chance to air a grievance or present opinions about topical political issues that concerned them, in a short, pre-recorded segment shown during the program. It appears that the program attempted to ensure that the members of the public selected from week to week represented a broad range of political opinion and were spread across different parts in Australia.
"Talking Pictures"
Presented by Mike Bowers, the "Talking Pictures" segment analyses political cartoons and photographs featured in the nation's newspapers from the previous week. Regularly appearing cartoonists include Warren Brown, Bill Leak, Geoff Pryor, Bruce Petty, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Matt Golding, Paul Batey, Sean Leahy and Fiona Katauskas.
"Poll of Polls"
Presented by Andrew Catsaras, the "Poll of Polls" segment aggregates and reviews political polling from the previous month. This segment commenced in February 2012, appearing during the last week of each month in 2012, moving to the first week of each month in 2013.
Commentators and panelists
Regular
| Commentator | Background |
|---|---|
| Denis Atkins | National Affairs Editor, The Courier-Mail |
| Mike Bowers | Photographer at large for The Guardian Australia
& Host of Talking Pictures |
| James Campbell | National Weekend Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and the Sunday Mail |
| Annabel Crabb | Political Journalist, ABC |
| David Crowe | Chief Political Editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald |
| Phil Coorey | Political Editor, The Australian Financial Review |
| Malcolm Farr | Political Commentator & former National Political Editor, News.com.au |
| Patricia Karvelas | Presenter, ABC Radio National Drive |
| Fran Kelly | Host, Frankly |
| Mark Kenny | Senior fellow at the Australian Studies Institute at the Australian National University |
| David Marr | Journalist, The Guardian Australia |
| George Megalogenis | Author/Columnist |
| Karen Middleton | Chief political correspondent, The Saturday Paper |
| Katharine Murphy | Political Editor, The Guardian Australia |
| Andrew Probyn | Former Political Editor, ABC News |
| Mark Riley | Political Editor, Seven News |
| Niki Savva | Columnist, and former Liberal Staffer |
| Tory Shepherd | Political Editor, The Advertiser |
| Annika Smethurst | State political editor for The Age. |
| Michael Stutchbury | Editor-in-Chief, The Australian Financial Review |
| Lenore Taylor | Editor, The Guardian Australia |
| Laura Tingle | Political correspondent, 7.30 |
| Brian Toohey | Columnist with the Australian Financial Review |
| Virginia Trioli | Presenter on ABC Radio Melbourne, Former Co Host of News Breakfast and former 702 ABC Sydney presenter |
| Peter van Onselen | Political Editor, 10 News First and Contributing Editor, The Australian |
| Source:[9] | |
Former
| Commentator | Background |
|---|---|
| Gerard Henderson | Executive Director, Sydney Institute[10] |
| Piers Akerman | Columnist, Sydney's Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph |
| Tim Blair | Opinion Editor, Sydney's Daily Telegraph |
| Matt Price | Sketch writer, The Australian (deceased) |
| Glenn Milne | Political journalist, The Australian and News Ltd Sunday publications (sacked as a panelist) |
| Andrew Bolt | Host of The Bolt Report on Sky News Live, Herald Sun columnist and blogger |
References
- ^ "Beyond the boundary". 16 February 2006.
- ^ "Barrie Cassidy to leave Insiders". TVTonight. 16 March 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
- ^ "David Speers to host Insiders from 2020". TVTonight. 5 June 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ Sutton, Candace (14 June 2020). "ABC's Insiders: Host forced to admit its failure to include Indigenous voices". news.com.au. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ^ Scott, Rob (12 June 2020). "ABC's 'Insiders' has not had a person of colour on its panel in at least a decade". Junkee. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
The publicly available archives are patchy between 2005 and 2010, and there are no archives available before 2005, so it's impossible to be certain, but an ABC spokesperson was unable to nominate a single person of colour who had appeared on the Insiders panel in the show's history.
- ^ a b Knox, David (15 June 2020). ""Insiders does need to do better"". TV Tonight. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
- ^ "ABC's Game of Thrones spoof unites Donald Trump lovers and haters". ABC News. 24 February 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
- ^ "Huw Parkinson". www.walkleys.com. The Walkley Foundation. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
- ^ "Insiders - About Us". ABC. Australian Broadcasting Commission. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
- ^ "Conservative commentator Gerard Henderson dropped from ABC's Insiders program". TheGuardian.com. 24 February 2020.