How old is the sordid Australian phenomenon of ‘trial by media’?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with renowned biographer Patrick Mullins about federation era lawyer and politician Richard Meagher. A man who sold his soul and reputation, then spent decades desperately trying to claw them back. His story has remarkable parallels with the defamation cases and news sensations of today, revealing deep seated aspects of our national character that we may need to reckon with.

Patrick Mullins is a Canberra-based writer and academic who has a PhD from the University of Canberra. His first book, Tiberius with a Telephone, won the 2020 NSW Premier’s Non-Fiction Award and the 2020 National Biography Award. He is also the author of The Trials of Portnoy: how Penguin brought down Australia’s censorship system, and has just released The Stained Man: a crime, a scandal, and the making of a nation. Frank Bongiorno has dubbed Patrick ‘the most accomplished Australian biographer of his generation’.