7am

Like so many stories about misinformation, this one starts with a social media post.
“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed. Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM.”
Not long after that, Donald Trump backtracked and set the record straight.
“He’s on it! Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way.”
But in those few short hours before clarification, misinformation had already taken hold.
Social media posts accusing Australia of inaction on the soccer team, and falsely claiming Albanese lied to Trump about granting the women asylum gained millions of views on X.
Meanwhile, news commentary which wrongly portrayed Trump as triggering Albanese’s decision hit the mainstream media.
It’s just one recent example of the wave of misinformation making it increasingly difficult for all of us to work out what is and isn't factual in this ‘post truth’ world.
Today ABC journalist and host of new doco ‘The Matter of Facts’ Hamish Macdonald on the misinformation and disinformation taking over our online world.

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Guest: Hamish Macdonald, ABC journalist
Photo: Samuel Corum/Sipa USA
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It’s been one year since dead fish began washing up on South Australian beaches, as the largest algal bloom in Australia’s history spread along the coast.
Marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett was part of the team that first surveyed the bloom – coming face to face with the algae’s devastating impact.
Twelve months on, the bloom is still there, the damage has spread, and many of the warnings scientists made in those early days have proved well founded – particularly the damage to marine life.
Today, we’re bringing you an episode from 2025 with marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett, on what caused the bloom, what he saw beneath the surface, and what it means for the fate of the ocean.

This episode first aired in August 2025.

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Guest: Marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennett
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South Australia does not usually wake up on election day at the centre of the national mood. But this morning, a contest that looks settled on paper is carrying a much stranger energy.
Peter Malinauskas is expected to win comfortably. The real movement is happening elsewhere; in the noise around One Nation, the protest vote in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis gathering around the once marginal party, and the possibility that a state election could end up telling us something bigger about where Australian politics is heading.
Today, Editor of InDaily SA, Belinda Willis, on the state election that may be a whitewash for Labor, but a warning for everyone else.

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Guest: InDaily SA Editor Belinda Willis
Photo: AAP Image/David Mariuz
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While the world focuses on the war underway in Iran, Israel and the Gulf, there is another war front developing – Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Shia group, Hezbollah dragged the country into the war, attacking Israel after a joint US-Israeli airstrike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel then hit back, bombing Beirut and amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border.
Meanwhile, more than a million Lebanese people are now displaced, forced to flee their homes as the attacks continue and Israel demands evacuations.
Today, Michael Young, editor of Carnegie’s Middle East Center blog on whether Lebanon could see a ground invasion and what Israel’s plan is to reshape the region.

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Guest: Michael Young, editor of Carnegie’s Middle East Center blog
Photo: EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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Brett Hosking is a fifth-generation grain and livestock farmer, and has seen his fair share of heartache and hard times.
But this time, it’s not a natural disaster or a foreign war that’s threatening to tip farmers over the edge, but a decision from the Victorian government.
The state has passed new compulsory acquisition laws which make it easier for energy companies to acquire farmers’ land and build transmission lines and renewable energy projects on it.
Today, Victorian Farmers Federation President, Brett Hosking, on why the government’s push to roll out renewables and transition lines in rural Australia has left farmers feeling devastated and disrespected.

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Guest: Brett Hosking, Victorian Farmers Federation President
Photo: AAP Image/Joel Carrett
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.