The Yarn

Eco-anxiety is the chronic fear of environmental doom. 

While the American Psychiatric Association acknowledges its existence, it doesn’t classify it as a pathology. It’s a rational response to the world around us. And it’s especially prevalent among young people. 

At best, eco-anxiety can motivate collective action. But it can also lead to paralysis and despair.  

This week, we’re bringing you stories from both sides of the spectrum.  

It’s the first episode of Climate Generation. A two-part series about uncertain futures, impending crises, and the generation forced to navigate them.   

Reporting by Georgina Sebar, Filment Ho, and Amelia Costigan.

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Victoria’s coastlines are receding, inland waterways are flooding more frequently, and things are only expected to get worse. 

This week, we’re bringing you two more interviews about The Citizen’s environmental reporting.  One about Gippsland abandoning fossil fuels in the face of a coastal climate crisis. Another about the beachside suburbs of Port Phillip unprepared for rising seas. 

The articles are part of a special series called Neighbourhood Watch, which puts a local spotlight on burning issues.  

Neighbourhood Watch is a collaboration between The Citizen’s student reporters and Right Now — a not-for-profit online magazine focused on human rights.  

Thank you to interviewees Amelia Costigan and Gideon Cohen. 

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Melbourne’s West has a pollution problem and residents are fed up with government inaction. 

This week, you’ll hear about original reporting from students working on two separate projects — one looking into freight truck exhaust fumes, another investigating years of fires at a landfill near residential properties. Both issues are severely affecting local health.  

The projects are part of a special series called Neighborhood Watch, which puts a local spotlight on burning issues. 

Student reporters from The Citizen collaborated on these articles with The Age and Right Now — a not-for-profit online magazine focused on human rights. 

Thank you to interviewees Jade Murray, Violet Li, and Marilyn Tan.

You can read their reporting here:

https://www.thecitizen.org.au/articles/the-breathtaking-state-of-truck-pollution-in-melbournes-west

https://www.thecitizen.org.au/articles/it-consumes-your-life-landfills-rotten-smells-and-toxic-history

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The moral panic about gender has been dominating conservative headlines lately, but gender nonconformity is nothing new.  

The Hijra people of South Asia have been recognised as an additional gender for centuries, as have the Faʻafafine of Samoa, and the Femminielli of southern Italy.  

This week, we’re bringing you three stories about people challenging gender norms just as they’ve always done. Stories about being gender diverse, as well as people rebelling against their expected gender roles.  

It’s the fourth episode of Breaking the Binaries, a series about the intersections that blend, blur, or break society’s binary codes. 

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show, an immersive exhibition about breaking binaries which is open now.  

Reporting by Xin Meng, Qinyuan Zhang, and Yinuo Jiang.

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There’s this word — “Solastalgia”. It describes homesickness when you’re still at home... because that home is changing in ways you can’t control.  

This week, we’re bringing you three stories about our relationship to place. Places in flux and places that aren’t what we thought they were.  

It’s the fourth episode of Breaking the Binaries, a series about the intersections that blend, blur, or break society’s binary codes.

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show, an immersive exhibition about breaking binaries which is open now. 

Reporting by Meghan Dansie, Nick Harvey Doyle, and Zhixin Zhang

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Today we're bringing you another episode of News Bites, a series of live interviews showcasing the work of local journalists.  

This week, we’re joined by Matilda Boseley, The Guardian’s TikTok queen whose videos often garner tens of thousands of views. 

We’re also joined by Zara Seidler, the co-founder of Instagram-focused news service The Daily Aus. It’s one of the fastest growing news sites in Australia, with 430 thousand followers, and thirty-seven million impressions a month. 

For News Bites, Matilda and Zara spoke to lecturer Sami Shah about TikTok, Instagram, and the future of news. 

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Today, we're returning to our News Bites series. It spotlights the work of staff and students at the Centre for Advancing Journalism.

This week’s guest is Lecturer and audio journalist Sami Shah.

Sami got his start in a Pakistani newsroom. Since then, he’s moved to Australia where he’s hosted the ABC Melbourne Breakfast show and made radio documentaries on free speech and race for ABC’s Earshot series. Most recently, he’s produced a thrilling audio drama for Audible called The Missed.

For News Bites, he spoke to senior lecturer Louisa Lim about honing one of the most crucial journalistic skills  — pitching.

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In medieval times, humans were confident they knew how the universe was ordered.  One fourteenth century illustration – known as the Great Chain of Being –  depicts God at the top of the heap, sitting amongst the clouds. Below him is a tier of humans. Below them, is a lowly tier of animals swimming, flying, or grazing.  And below them, plants and minerals. 

But nowadays, we’re often humbled by evidence that our dominion over non-humans isn’t as self-evident as we once thought. And that doesn’t even account for the possibility of intelligent life beyond the stars.  

In today’s episode, we’re bringing you three stories that question the differences between humans and their animal counterparts. 

It's the third episode of Breaking the Binaries, a series about the intersections that blend, blur, or break society’s binary codes. 

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show, an immersive exhibition about breaking binaries which is open now. 

Reporting by Gemma Grant, Christopher Harley, and Ann Khorany 

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This week, The Yarn is confronting taboos. We're bringing you four stories about what happens when doing the right thing means breaking the rules.    

It’s the second episode of Breaking the Binaries, our new series about the intersections that blend, blur, or break society’s binary codes. 

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show, an immersive exhibition about breaking binaries which is open now.

Reporting by Sean Ruse, Aania Tandon, Serena Raza, and Sasha Gattermayr.

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“From chatbots and virtual assistants to self-driving cars and smart homes, AI is becoming an increasingly pervasive presence in our lives, raising questions about privacy, ethics, and the future of work.” 

So pervasive that the sentence you just read wasn’t written by a human. It was written by Chat GPT, an AI chatbot.  

In today’s episode, we’re bringing you three stories about the boundaries between machines and humans, the real and virtual. 

It's the first episode of our new series, Break the Binaries. Over the next four weeks, we’ll explore the intersections that blend, blur, or break society’s binary codes. 

These stories were produced in collaboration with All the Best mentors for the Science Gallery’s new show, an immersive exhibition about breaking binaries which is open now.  

Reporting by Jade Murray, Qiyun Liu, and Xinyi Li.

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