News Weakly

NEWS WEAKLY 201 – 21ST FEBRUARY 2026This week on News Weakly: Australian values get workshopped into meaninglessness, Pauline Hanson re-releases her Greatest Bigots collection, ISIS brides become the nation’s worst dating story, and Victoria’s Big Build proves the only thing constructed efficiently is defensiveness.TOP STORIES OF THE WEEKAUSTRALIAN VALUES GET DEVALUED!Angus Taylor rediscovers the Liberal Party’s “centre of gravity,” which turns out to be immigration anxiety with better lighting. We revisit the official Australian Values Statement and ask the obvious question: why are migrants the only ones being tested on it?PAULINE PAULINES!Pauline Hanson declares there are no “good Muslims,” the ABC obliges, and the outrage machine spins up like it’s 2015 again. Is she a politician, or just a human push notification powered by grievance?SWIPE RIGHT FOR THE CALIPHATE!Anthony Albanese has “nothing but contempt” for Australian ISIS brides attempting to return. But if citizenship collapses under the weight of terrible romantic decisions, half the country is in trouble.BIG BUILD, BIG TANTRUM!Explosive allegations of corruption on Victoria’s Big Build projects meet a Premier more offended by tone analysis than by bikie infiltration. When the scandal costs $15 billion, the real emergency is apparently eye direction.AND ENGLAND GETS ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEHEADING A ROYAL AGAIN!We briefly consider the monarchy, remember Charles I, and decide unless limbs are involved, we simply do not care.QUOTE OF THE WEEK“Citizenship is not a vibe-based subscription you cancel when someone makes a catastrophic life choice.”SUPPORT THE SHOWNews Weakly is independent and powered by listeners who prefer their news punched gently but repeatedly.If you’d like to support the show and keep it free of corporate chairmen’s lounges and vibe-based patriotism, join the Patreon:patreon.com/samishahYou’ll get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and the warm glow of knowing you are funding sarcasm in dark times.Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music “Historic Anticipation” by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Episode 200: THE CONSPIRACY PROBLEMSummaryA suicide bombing in a Shia mosque barely registers before the algorithm moves on, and that erasure opens the door to something darker. This episode looks at why conspiracy thinking no longer lives on the fringes, but feels increasingly rational in a world where intelligence agencies really do assassinate, destabilise, and lie, and institutions keep getting caught doing exactly what they deny. From Pakistan to Australia, from foreign policy to arts boards and police crackdowns, the show unpacks how incompetence, cowardice, and risk-aversion get misread as secret coordination, and why that misunderstanding doesn’t challenge power but lets it off the hook. When everything feels orchestrated, accountability disappears. And once reality becomes optional, nothing democratic survives for long.CreditsSami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music Historic Anticipation by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Social Cohesion, News Now…NEWS WEAKLY 199 – 07 Feb 2026This week on News Weakly:Australia discovers its newest national value, which mostly means everyone should stop talking while the government imports a global conflict and acts surprised when it doesn’t calm anyone down.The Epstein Files, News Now…Three million pages confirm the problem was never just Epstein, it was the elite ecosystem that kept letting him back into respectable rooms, plus Deepak Chopra turns out to be exactly who you thought he was.Everything Is Fine, News Now…The media panics over One Nation polling, Cori Bernardi returns from irrelevance, and Australian democracy once again proves it prefers furniture to fascism.Oman Is the New Geneva, News Now…The US and Iran meet in Oman to not start a war yet, with Trump threatening bombing as a confidence-building exercise and everyone pretending this is diplomacy.Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music ‘Historic Anticipation’ by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

NEWS WEAKLY 198 – 31st January 2026This week on News Weakly:• Scott Morrison resurfaces to reform Islam, Western civilisation, and reality itself, proposing authoritarian religious controls while insisting this is what freedom looks like.• A bomb is thrown into a First Nations gathering in Perth, and Australia carefully waits to see who did it before deciding whether terrorism is the correct word.• Iran may have killed tens of thousands of protesters in weeks, but struggles to compete with America for global attention, airtime, and moral urgency.• The world watches state violence selectively, proving outrage is less about scale and more about proximity to English-speaking cable news.• Why I’ve stopped following American politics altogether, while people drown quietly in the Mediterranean and the global order reshapes itself off-screen.Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music Historic Anticipation by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

NEWS WEAKLY 197 – 24th January 2026This week on News Weakly:• George R. R. Martin gives an interview that finally, definitively kills The Winds of Winter and with it the last surviving shard of millennial optimism.• The Coalition explodes over hate-speech laws it demanded, negotiated, diluted, then rage-quit anyway, proving opposition is harder than outrage.• Australia passes its “strongest ever” hate laws, handing vast discretionary power to the state and asking everyone to trust the vibes.• Davos assembles the world’s elites to solve distrust, only for Donald Trump to confuse allies, geography, and colonialism with branding.• Gaza is reimagined as a luxury real estate opportunity, because nothing ends mass trauma like a PowerPoint and a beachfront casino.Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music Historic Anticipation by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

NEWS WEAKLY 196 – 17th January 2026Top Stories of the WeekRunning From IranA nationwide internet blackout, mass killings, exile fantasies, and the danger of confusing silence for stability.Albo Hates HateAfter Bondi, Australia reaches for sweeping hate laws that try to arrest a feeling instead of fixing a mechanism, while New Zealand’s Christchurch response still quietly embarrasses us.Writers Read the RoomAdelaide Writers’ Week is cancelled, apologised for, then retroactively justified, proving once again that institutions love free speech right up until they have to defend it.Kevin Oh SuccessionKevin Rudd exits Washington and Canberra realises the next US ambassador’s main qualification is surviving Donald Trump without triggering an alliance incident.PlusA deep dive into how “foreign meddling” narratives poison solidarity, why cultural institutions keep mistaking safety for optics, and how despair gets rebranded as pragmatism.And at the end of the episode, a bonus feature:Mocking the News – Sami’s documentary exploring how satire collides with journalism, objectivity, and power, and why jokes sometimes end up telling the truth faster than headlines.Quote of the Week“Silence isn’t stability. It’s just what violence sounds like once it’s done its job.”Support the Showpatreon.com/samishahSami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music ‘Historic Anticipation’ by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

Just a quick announcement that the next episode of News Weakly will contain a bonus audio documentary about News Satire.

NEWS WEAKLY 195 – 10 January 2026This week on News Weakly, the empire stops pretending, the internet gets unplugged, a royal commission settles in for the long haul, and a writers’ festival demonstrates once again that its strongest literary skill is drafting a press release explaining why someone has been quietly uninvited.ALSO IN THIS EPISODE• Trump abandons subtlety entirely, floats Greenland acquisition, and introduces the Donroe Document, which sounds less like foreign policy and more like a hostile takeover clause.• Iran responds to nationwide protests by pulling the internet plug, proving once again that authoritarian crisis management always starts with “have you tried turning the country off and on again?”• A long, uncomfortable look at how free speech gets hollowed out not by ideology, but by boards, risk assessments, and the quiet terror of a bad headline.QUOTE OF THE WEEK“Trump didn’t end the international order. He ended the bedtime story version of it.”SUPPORT THE SHOWIf you enjoy long arguments disguised as comedy, consider supporting the show on Patreon: patreon.com/samishahSami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music “Historic Anticipation” by Paul MottramThis podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Sami Shah.

NEWS WEAKLY 194 – Media Ethics, Paper Wars, and a Currency in Freefall03 January 2026TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK• A terror hero meets Australian media ethics• Humanitarian aid fails an ideological compliance test• Iran’s economy collapses again• Australia’s regulator regulates itselfQUOTE OF THE WEEK“You don’t pay for interviews. Not in cash. Not in gifts. Definitely not in hotel suites.”SUPPORT THE SHOWNews Weakly is listener-supported and ad-light by choice.If you’d like to support the show and keep it independent, you can join the Patreon at:http://patreon.com/samishahSami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster.For more: http://thesamishah.comTheme music ‘Historic Anticipation’ by Paul Mottram