We’ve spoken about Josh Szeps before. Back in 2022, his broadcast on Radio National was one of several fractures that Women’s Cooee saw developing at the ABC. Since then Josh has left the ABC to go it alone as a podcaster, publishing his voice under the banner Uncomfortable Conversations, tagline “a safe space for dangerous ideas”.
Szeps had one of those uncomfortable conversations with Sall Grover, the Australian woman whose life was put on hold because a man wanted access to her fledgling woman-only app. We at Women’s Cooee felt uncomfortable alright as Szeps muddled through the conversation using ideological language like “assigned female at birth” to avoid alienating trans activists. He talked over Sall as he contorted himself to support trans activist talking points. At least he had the conversation. Sigh.
Today we share Szeps’ recent video critique of the ABC coverage surrounding USA President Trump’s recent Executive Orders restoring biological sex. The ABC’s coverage is, as Szeps points out, appallingly written and seems not to have passed over an editorial desk. In doing this, the ABC robs the Australian people of any real opportunity to understand or critique these policies.
What excites us here is the explicit call-outs Szeps makes about the ABC’s thrall to lobby groups (though he does not explicitly name ACON). The ex-ABC employee says “newsrooms have been captured by interest groups“, and that editors assign stories “to people on the basis of their identity and their activist interest rather than on their ability to integrate information“.
For a seasoned journalist like Szeps, critiquing the ABC’s reportage around Trump’s Executive Orders is a slam-dunk. The article he reviews is so badly riddled with Trump Derangement Syndrome that it is hard to take seriously.
It is an unfortunate choice of case study since it muddles together the ABC’s obvious bias about Trump with the ABC’s obvious bias on gender issues. It seems that Szeps has sufficient lefty credibility to risk criticism of the ABC on how it handles articles about Trump. He’s hoping to make inroads with middle Australians who want to criticise the ABC’s activism without being tarred with the MAGA brush and dismissed as simple wrong-headed “right-wingers”.
Here at Women’s Cooee, we look forward to Szeps’ critique of the ABC’s biased coverage of the puberty blockers issue.
Language warning: ideological language ahead!