The Yarn

After President-elect Donald Trump's landslide win and a federal election looming, Australian politicians have lessons to learn from the US election.  

The Yarn spoke to two US political analysts, on different sides of the political aisle, to get a breakdown of the Republicans' success. 

Tim Lynch is a professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne.

Cory Alpert is a former Biden-Harris White House staffer, now a PhD student at the University of Melbourne. 

James Costa is a journalist at The Citizen. 

Elliot Rodriguez was the producer of this episode. Louisa Lim was the executive producer. 

American Flag image by Gordon Johnson, Pixabay. 

Map of Australia image by Free Vector Maps.

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The Harry Brookes Allen Museum is one of many collections at the University of Melbourne. The University has collected artefacts that has contributed to a wealth of knowledge that is vital to Melbourne, Australia and the world. 

But the way University scholars collected these artefacts was not always done in an ethical way. Reporter Haoyue Deng learns how a rare marsupial mole is the key to the forgotten people behind some of the University's collections. 

INTERVIEWEES: 

• Rohan Long, Curator of the Harry Brookes Allen Museum at the University of Melbourne 
• Emma Kowal, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Deakin University 

Inspiration for this episode was informed by the recently published book Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia by Ross L. Jones, Dr. James Waghorne, and Professor Marcia Langton of the University of Melbourne. If you would like to know more about The University of Melbourne’s response, you can download the book for free here.  

MUSIC CREDITS

Bird(Magpie) sound from Freesound

Bush walking from Freesound 

Mouse squeak from Pixabay 

Snake from Pixabay 

Eternality by Nathan Zammit from the Living Instruments Project 

Tundra by Jack Burmeister from the Living Instruments Project 

Marimba by Olivia Marsh from the Living Instruments Project 

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What would Australia look like if we had monkeys swinging around our cities? In the late 19th Century, a number of associations called “acclimatisation societies” sprung up across Australia with the goal of bringing familiar plants and animals to what the British colonists saw as an impoverished landscape. 

This episode explores the massive ecological transformation that shaped what the university’s environment looks like today, and how Indigenous knowledge about land preservation was ignored for decades.

INTERVIEWEES

Dr Pete Minard (historian of colonial science and environmental history)

Prof Lynette Russell AM (historian of Indigenous Australians and colonial anthropology)

SOUND ATTRIBUTIONS

axe chopping (in the forest) by Selector, accessible at www.freesound.org/s/410768, License: Creative Commons 0 1.0

Pied Currawong Strepera graculina by Sunny Tseng, accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/871215, License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share Alike 4.0

Grey Butcherbird Cracticus torquatus by Peter Boesman, accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/859826, License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share Alike 4.0

Australian Raven Corvus coronoides by Zebedee Muller, accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/801431, License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share Alike 4.0

Laughing Kookaburra Daceolo novaguineae by Ken George, accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/858185, License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share Alike 4.0

Common Myna Acridotheres tristis by Greg McLachlan, accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/331396, License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share Alike 4.0

Peace Piano song by Calvin Clavier. https://pixabay.com/music/modern-classical-peace-piano-song-216338/ 

Birds and Insects near Dam - Cathedral Ranges by Sassaby, accessible at freesound.org/s/427877, License: Creative Commons 0 1.0

180081 Sheep Farm 01 by FST18008, accessible at https://freesound.org/s/441801, License: Attribution 4.0

Cinematic rythmline by SamuelFJohanns from Pixabay

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The Old Quadrangle is one of the most photographed spots on the University of Melbourne campus, with students and tourists alike posing under its iconic archways. 

The romantic European architecture feels like you've been transported to the set of Hogwarts, but did you know that the stones used to create this effect were stolen from Indigenous lands in Tasmania? 

Reporter Giulia Scenna investigates the history of our campus's architecture and its relationship with Indigenous Australia. 

— 

Interviewees: 

• Dr Philip Goad, Professor of Architecture at the University of Melbourne 

• Dr James Waghorne, Senior Research Fellow and University Historian at the University of Melbourne 

Inspiration for this episode was informed by the recently published book Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia by Ross L. Jones, Dr. James Waghorne, and Professor Marcia Langton of the University of Melbourne. If you would like to know more about The University of Melbourne’s response, you can download the book for free here.  

MUSIC CREDITS (In order of appearance) 

Our Fingers Cold from Blue Dot Sessions 

Cold Summers from Blue Dot Sessions 

Crosswire from Blue Dot Sessions 

Temperance from Blue Dot Sessions 

La Costilla from Blue Dot Sessions 

10 Minutes Past from Blue Dot Sessions 

Watercool Quiet from Blue Dot Sessions 

Tape Player Sounds -Free for use under the Pixabay Content License 

A Common Pause from Blue Dot Sessions 

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Between the 1800s to1950s, anthropologists at the University of Melbourne were digging up burial sites of First Nations ancestors who had been laid to rest and collecting, rather stealing, their bodies. And while some of these human remains were returned to land and reburied, one collection remained hidden away at the university in a storage room until 2003. 

Uncover the true story of The University of Melbourne’s troubled past of grave robbing and the efforts to repatriate the hundreds of Indigenous ancestors’ skeletal remains back to their land and families. 

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Interviewees:

• Marie Havea, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council 
• Rohan Long, Curator of the Harry Brookes Allen Museum

Inspiration for this episode was informed by the recently published book Doombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia by Ross L. Jones, Dr. James Waghorne, and Professor Marcia Langton of the University of Melbourne. If you would like to know more about The University of Melbourne’s response, you can download the book for free here. 

MUSIC CREDITS (In order of appearance)

The Lonely Instrument Series -Cello -Played by Natalie Haas - Music by Trygve Larsen from Pixabay

Cold Sad Pianos - Music by Mike Kripak from Pixabay

Meditative Background Mystical Yoga Nature Fantasy Music - Music by Dubush Miaw from Pixabay

June  - Music by Marcel Pequel from Free Music Archive 

Sad Tragic Dramatic Music Slow Melancholic - Music by Denis Pavlov from Pixabay

Loneliness_Outro- Music by Grand_Project from Pixabay

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On the surface, the University of Melbourne is a historical spectacle – with its grand arches, stone facades, echoing hallways, and the chimes of the old clocktower.

But this university is also home to many secrets, from human remains unearthed on university grounds, to its role in nuclear testing on Indigenous lands.

In an eight-part series, students from the Centre for Advancing Journalism explore the university’s hidden past, revealing stories that reach beyond iconic buildings and the names they bear.

We dive into the colonial legacies tied to these structures, the injustice they represent, and the multicultural narratives that push back against this history.

This series is about truth-telling—illuminating the foundations on which this our university is built.

Join us as we unearth the stories that have been buried for far too long.

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This week, we're bringing you another episode of News Bites, a series of live interviews about the craft of journalism.   

Today’s guest is Silvia Montaña-Niño. Silvia is a new CAJ lecturer and was a journalist at El Espectador, one of Columbia’s most important newspapers.  

At the start of her career, Columbia was besieged by guerilla warfare and death squads. Drug lords like Pablo Escobar waged brutal campaigns of terrorism. Targets included politicians, the judiciary, and journalists.  

Silvia spoke to senior tutor Bernadette Nunn about reporting amidst this chaos. They also discussed her current research into global fact checking and misinformation. 

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Today’s News Bites guest is journalist and CAJ Lecturer Dr Caroline James-Garrod. Caroline got her start as a cadet at Leader Community Newspapers in Melbourne. Since then, she’s had an expansive career working across the country and abroad. 

She’s also seen major industry upheavals, from the rise of the 24/7 online news cycle to the era of mass job cuts. These shifts have left many journalists with too much work and not enough time, an issue Caroline researched as part of her PhD on time poverty. 

For News Bites, Caroline spoke with senior tutor Bernadette Nun. She shared advice for starting a career in community news and navigating an industry where jobs are scarce and time is precious.

Shownotes

''No time to think': Overloaded journalists trim practices to save time', Australian Journalism Review

'No bandwidth to think is the cost of being time poor', Pursuit

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This week, we're bringing you another episode of News Bites, a series of live interviews about the craft of journalism.  

Today’s guest is Khalid Amiri, who was a prominent news presenter for the Afghan state broadcaster RTA. He’s known for his courageous reporting and outspoken criticism of the Taliban.  

After Kabul fell in August 2021, Khalid and his family fled to Australia, where he’s pursuing a Master of International Relations at the University of Melbourne. 

He spoke to senior tutor Bernadette Nunn about the challenging but critical role that journalists play in conflict zones.

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In Victorian London, a persistent rumour spread of a murderer who could leap between the city’s alleyways to avoid detection. Newspapers called him spring-heeled jack—one of the first ever urban legends. 

He wasn’t real, but the fears that inspired him were. Fears of rapidly changing urban spaces and the upheavals of industrialization.  

This week, we’re bringing you stories about similar mythical monsters—and what they reflect about the societies that create them.

Featuring stories by Joseph Sadlier, Milla Richardson, Azka Taruna, and Louis Murdoch.

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