Antoinette Lattouf returns to cut through the chaos while recovering from surgery and preparing for a live show. This week she hands the mic and couch over to Randa Abdel-Fattah, who joins Jan Fran for this week’s episode of We Used To Be Journos.
Hello Etterati,
I would wish you a happy new year, but I am still somewhat shell-shocked by the scale of national and global shitticism that chose to skip the party hats and sparklers and head straight for the main spiral event of 2026.
I distinctly remember telling Jan (aka the other Ette) that it was fine for our very small team to go offline for two weeks. Surely not much would happen. Nobody would notice our absence. This was - in retrospect - ambitious, adorable and entirely misguided.
In that brief hiatus, the United States abducted Venezuela's President, days after rolling out a warm welcome and standing ovation for wanted war criminal and genocidaire Benjamin Netanyahu. The same government then watched and rationalised an ICE agent shooting dead a 37 year old mother of three in Minneapolis during an 'immigration operation '.
Meanwhile - at the time of writing - more than 600 people have been killed in Iran where protesters have taken to the streets to demand better economic conditions and a regime change, although an internet blackout is making it very difficult for journalists to get clear information from demonstrators. The question remains who, if anyone, is acting in the interests of an oppressed people rather than angling to seize power and further exploit Iranians.
Closer to home, the Adelaide Writers Festival joined the growing list of cultural institutions to buckle under external pressure, misread the room, and self-immolate in the name of ...??? From its editorials and hit pieces The Australian has signalled that 2026 will be its most divisive and racist year yet, which is saying something given the back catalogue.
