We look at the biggest news stories of 2016 that were ‘not really news’. From Harambe’s rise to meme stardom to Pokémon Go and Taylor Swift, Guardian staff discuss some of the year’s cultural phenomena

The lighter side of 2016 – Behind the Lines podcast

Come behind the scenes at the Guardian Australia newsroom. We talk to our journalists about the stories they’ve written and how they came to write them. If there are particular articles you’d like us to discuss, please do get in touch

News & Politics

Indigenous man David Dungay Jr died in Sydney’s Long Bay jail after a disagreement about a packet of biscuits. Our new podcast explores the questions his death raises about the use of medical restraint and tranquillisers Listen to Breathless, episode 2: Brothers Listen to Breathless, episode 3: Life Inside

Introducing Breathless: The Death of David Dungay Jnr

In 2012 Katharine Viner’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, took her aside and proposed starting a branch of the Guardian in Australia. A few months later she met the people who would become her first local journalists: Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy. In this special podcast Taylor talks to Viner – now the Guardian’s global editor-in-chief – and the founding chief executive of Guardian Australia, Ian McClelland, about the first five years of Guardian Australia

How did we start Guardian Australia? Behind the lines podcast

In a speech recorded in March at The School of Life in Melbourne, the Australian author explains how writing The Shepherd’s Hut got him thinking about the boys that get left behind • Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny

Tim Winton on men, boys and writing 'with my heart in my mouth' – Behind the Lines podcast

Gabrielle Jackson introduces you to our latest Guardian Australia podcast: Common Ground. Lenore Taylor and Rebecca Huntley bring four very different Australians together to find out where their views come from

Introducing Common Ground – Behind the Lines podcast

The Guardian columnist Brigid Delaney talks with Gabrielle Jackson and Bonnie Malkin about the highs and lows of the years she spent researching her new book Wellmania. Delaney talks about how retreats and yoga have worked for her … but bird-poo facials not so much. She says she has become alert to the ‘savage and savvy business people’ in a ‘multitrillion-dollar industry’ but recommends the value that being quiet and disconnected from the phone can bring. ‘It’s definitely made me more aware of the way I live’ • Read an extract from Wellmania

The lighter side of 2016 – Behind the Lines podcast

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