Gay Alcorn has been a journalist for over 25 years. She's been a Washington correspondent, edited The Sunday Age, won three Walkley Awards and is now the Melbourne editor for Guardian Australia.
I wanted to talk with Gay about a whole many things (we began by talking about this week's 4Corners report on the refugee children of Nauru and the roles and biases of journalism), but the bulk of our chat became focussed on the notion of "political correctness": the nature of our public discourse, section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, identity politics and cultural appropriation.
Gay describes herself as a progressive person but is a staunch advocate of the freedom of speech and has concerns about the way we go about talking with each other. Is it now longer possible for us to "reasonably disagree"?
This piece by Gay on PC is the basic starting point for our chat, I'd recommend reading that first before listening here. We also got on to Lionel Shriver's speech at the Brisbane Writer's Festival and the ensuing furore; this will also be the focus of next week's episode with Yassmin Abdel-Magied.
Boundless Plains To Share at Belvoir Theatre in January 2017
Gay's writing at Guardian Australia
The Media's Moment of Truth by Frank Bruni
Hunt For The Radical Centre: Confronting Welfare Dependency by Noel Pearson
The Pacific Solution's brutal fact: we need it by Jonathan Holmes
Those fighting offshore detention don't need all the answers by me
Section 18C Explainer: What is it, and why do some politicians want it changed? by Luke McNamara
Cause of the Week: Guardian Australia (theguardian.com/au), Oxfam Australia (oxfam.org.au)
