Annie Pullar: Welcome to Covered, a podcast that helps you figure out what the hell is going on in the news and how you feel about it. Jodi: Here to guide you through the biggest news stories of the week. As always, we are your hosts, journalists, Jodie Lee and Annie Puller. Annie Pullar: And it's been a massive week. We're diving into Australia's most decorated war hero, Ben Roberts Smith, arrested on suspected war crimes of murder. Jodi: Our second story this week is US Breakfast TV host Savannah Guthrie has returned to the set of The Today Show months after her elderly mother was abducted from her home. Annie Pullar: and splashdown changing tune. ⁓ Astronauts have successfully circumnavigated the move landing safely back on earth on Saturday. But this week, I know I've really come full circle with this story, but we'll get to that soon. This week, we actually want to try something new. We are introducing, and can I get a drum roll please? This is based on listeners feedback, honorable mentions. So these are the stories that weren't big enough for a deep dive, but are really worth putting on your radar. Jodi: obsessed with this story. And the very first one is Donald Trump. US president announced a two week ceasefire in the war with Iran, but it lasted closer to two minutes. Well, not quite. ⁓ Israel launched really devastating strikes on Lebanon. Iran said that Lebanon was a part of the ceasefire proposal and so the deal was effectively called off. Annie Pullar: Kanye West, once referred to himself as the greatest artist of all time, has actually been banned from entering the UK. Yep, you heard that right. The Home Office made the decision based on his history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and I think when the country that tolerates Piers Morgan draws the line on you, well, that's definitely saying something. Bruce Lerumans tried and failed to ditch the title of rapist, he appealed his failed defamation case and this week also failed at the appeal and the woman charged with supplying Friendstar Matthew Perry with the ketamine ⁓ said to have killed him has been jailed, ⁓ dubbed the ketamine queen herself, Jave Sanga, was sentenced this week. Jodi: But let's dive right into our biggest stories of the week. And the first one is enormous. Australia's most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts Smith is today behind bars at Silverwater Jail. Annie Pullar: Yeah, we're talking about the man who received a Victoria Cross medal from Queen Elizabeth II and whose uniform is right now still on display at the Australian War Memorial. Now he was arrested on five charges of war crime murder. Jodi: think the Victoria Cross medal is really important here because it gives an understanding of just who this man is. So let's go into a bit of his history. In 2010, he was serving for Australia and Afghanistan and on patrol with his unit when they were pinned down under heavy Taliban fire. Robert Smith stepped directly into that line of fire to draw the fire toward himself to allow his own patrol to keep moving. And that's the gallantry that he was awarded for. Annie Pullar: Mm. Yeah, it was incredibly brave. There was no doubt in that moment. He was a hero. He essentially saved his entire unit. But now, if we fast forward to this week, ⁓ though, the 47 year old father was arrested at Sydney Airport and charged, as we said, with five counts of war crime murder. Now, these are incredibly serious charges, charges that carry a maximum ⁓ penalty of life in prison. And the arrest itself, I would say. It did come as a shock, just the very nature of it, but these allegations aren't exactly new. So the ages investigative journalist, Nick McKenzie, who also reports for Nine in the Sydney Morning Herald, along with one of his colleagues, Chris Masters, have broken several stories about this alleged conduct of Ben Robert Smith, predominantly that he killed unarmed detainees while in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. Now it's been a whole thing, it's been playing out for several years. Robert Smith essentially sued Nine and the papers for defamation. He lost that and a judge actually found that there was substantial truth on what they call the balance of probabilities that he was actually responsible for the death of these four detainees. Jodi: So what you're referring to there is a civil defamation case and now he's been arrested on criminal charges. He's facing a criminal potentially trial. But let's park that for a second and talk about his arrest because I found this quite shocking. You said it didn't come so much as a surprise because we'd heard about the charges but the way that he was arrested was quite jarring I thought. He was pulled off a flight. He was on a domestic flight, pulled off a plane in front of his 15 year old daughters and the AFP filmed this. There were officers on the ground with cameras. There were also media who were tipped off, who were there at the airport to capture the entire thing. Annie Pullar: Yeah, it felt really like a fairly big media show, almost like he was being paraded by these detectives, which is a very bold public statement by the AFP that they've essentially taken this action, that they've decided to arrest him in this manner. And the timing of this is also really intriguing. ⁓ It's happening just two weeks before one of the most significant days on the Australian calendar being Anzac Day, the day that we celebrate, ⁓ commemorate our service men and women. This for me at least didn't feel like an accident. It was a really clear message. It's also in spite of allegations that ⁓ Robert Smith's lawyers had actually tried to engage with police for some time. ⁓ They had offered for him to come in for an interview to try and avoid kind of public spectacle. ⁓ There's also reports that he had called a contact at the AFP himself and said, ⁓ if this is going to happen, can you give me the heads up because I hand myself in. ⁓ Jodi: that was because he didn't want his children to see it happen in real time but unfortunately they did. What this says and the reason police would film something like this and then distribute it is it's them doing their best work right this is what our law enforcement is there for to capture and then prosecute people and they've got you know they did that in real time and that's kind of why they probably viewed this as a PR opportunity Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi: too good to pass up, I guess it just doesn't sit well with me because in the Australian legal system you are entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and I think this was already such a high profile case that so many people had read about during the defamation trial, that civil trial. ⁓ It makes it difficult and paints him in a pretty grim light ahead of the legal proceedings which I find really tricky and potentially could jeopardize any trial. Annie Pullar: Yeah, I think you do have to somewhat question the optics of all of this. This is an arrest that would have had to have been green-lighted, signed off by the Attorney General, possibly even the Prime Minister. ⁓ So there's a lot of questions being asked, answers that no doubt will come out in the coming weeks and months. But Ben Roberts-Smith has a very long, fierce list of supporters and they have essentially come out swinging in the wake of this. Pauline Hanson. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and billionaire Gina Reinhart have essentially fiercely defended Ben Roberts Smith. put out a statement and she said, have we lost sight of the fact that in inadequately defended country facing uncertain times... ⁓ The morale of our Defence Force has already been brought to its lowest ebb since inception. Our Defence personnel numbers are inadequate and recruitment is suffering. Jodi: really tricky because what this begs the question for me is it patriotic or inappropriate to support the arrest of Ben Roberts Smith? Annie Pullar: I honestly, ⁓ I personally don't know how to feel about this one. I am not going to try and play judge or jury. There's going be a lot of people that are going to try and do that. But what we do know is that there's been a lot of legitimate criticism about how long Australian troops were actually left in Afghanistan, the fog war. ⁓ the toll that prolonged exposure to that environment actually takes on people. And I can't begin to understand any of that. In a Stan docu-series that I actually recently watched on Ben Roberts-Smith, there's really interesting insight from an organisational psychologist who was tasked with interviewing soldiers after deployments. And she talks about essentially what she uncovered through these interviews describing what she characterised ⁓ as a culture in parts where killing actually became a sport. The competition and the pressure within these patrols and tours. Now this doesn't speak directly to the individual charges but I think it does add a bit of a layer to how all of this is actually being understood. Jodi: No doubt it's an incredibly high pressure, stressful, demanding job and service that these people provide for our liberty and safety. Having said that, this rhetoric that's doing the rounds at the moment, that is, if you support the prosecution, if you're okay with Ben Roberts Smith being taken into custody, then you're okay essentially piling on our diggers. And that's what I have a real problem with. I think that's pretty dangerous, that line of thinking. Annie Pullar: Yeah. Jodi: think on some level, or not on some level, I think two things can be true at the same time. You can believe Australian soldiers served with honour and be very grateful for that and for them and still believe that if one of them allegedly did the wrong thing at any time that they should be held to account. In my view, kind of like the truly patriotic position is that, is accountability. As it is in any work, you know, in any work environment. It shouldn't matter how high pressure or how dangerous. Annie Pullar: Mm. Mmm. Yeah. Jodi: your role is, if you are found to have done the wrong thing, then I think the Australia that we all know and love is not an Australia of double standards. And that means that if you have done the wrong thing and are found to have done that, then you need to face consequences. Annie Pullar: Mm. Mm. Yeah, and ultimately I think we can have faith in our justice system. He is going to be in the hands of the court. But speaking of standards, it's actually worth noting ⁓ the different standards for proof Ben Roberts-Smith will actually have to face in a criminal trial as opposed to the civil defamation trial he fought and lost. Now, ⁓ in a civil case, the charges need to be proven, as I mentioned earlier, on the balance of probabilities. So that's essentially... ⁓ ⁓ more than 50 % likelihood. But in a criminal trial, it's completely different. It's beyond reasonable doubt. That is essentially the biggest crux. So that's a much higher bar you need to convince, most likely a jury, that a crime was committed, not that it just happened. ⁓ And for me, this really raises interesting questions about how this trial, which probably won't... ⁓ take off or happen for years actually plays out because in panelling a jury for this will be a nightmare. You need to find 12 people who haven't already formed an opinion on Ben Roberts Smith and after years of coverage, defamation proceedings and now an arrest that played out like a media event, that's going to be very challenging. There'll be a lot of complexities. Jodi: Thank wonder if this will be a judge-alone trial because of the difficulties in and panelling a jury. Only time will tell as you said it's years away. Experts are saying it's at least two years away. While Ben Roberts-Smith at the time of recording is currently in jail, he does have a bail hearing on the 17th of April. So watch this space and let's move on to our next story. Annie Pullar: Mmm. Yes, a long way to go with that one. But this second story was also difficult to watch and play out this week, albeit for different reasons. So in the US, Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, who was actually born in Melbourne in Australia, returned to work on the Breakfast TV show 10 weeks after her elderly mother, Nancy Guthrie, was abducted and disappeared without a trace. Jodi: Thank ⁓ so many feelings just as a complete aside, the reference to work being home kind of irks me, but that's a conversation for another day. I just think, you know, it's one thing to return to work after something so tragic happens to you. Like that's an incredibly difficult decision to make. But how do you return to work when your work is the news and your personal tragedy is unresolved and has been playing out in the news extremely publicly for months? Annie Pullar: you Jodi: It's like, how do you actually do that? Annie Pullar: Yeah, I mean, her bosses actually thought about this really carefully and I think they were very methodical about this return. According to page six, which is like the US entertainment Bible, producers actually told her co-host to treat it essentially as business as usual, ⁓ instructing them pretty much to not formally welcome her back, not to address the appearance, just let Savannah ease into it. And I don't think that was them ignoring the elephant in the room. I think it was actually protecting the TV host so she wasn't having to respond to this family tragedy every 10 minutes, ⁓ live on air. The had yellow flowers because yellow really become this symbol of hope in the search for Nancy Guthrie. ⁓ So it was acknowledged, but it was done quietly, subtly, and definitely on Savannah Guthrie's terms. And remember, this wasn't actually the first time she'd been on camera since her mother was abducted. She'd actually been on the breakfast show she usually hosts, but she did a sit down interview, which is just heart wrenching, ⁓ talking about what happened. It was very personal and it was extremely raw. Jodi: Yes. See it's that, so I have actually seen this before. And so when at the very end she says, I will not hide my face, I think that's very telling. And if I remember correctly, the tone of the sit down interview that she did was kind of, she was very emotional and very raw and very vulnerable as you can see there. I feel like she was also quite strategic. A lot of the messaging. Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi: kind of harked me back to my police reporting days and some of the messaging that police instruct victims to use when they do an appeal. And that's why I actually think now that we've revisited this sit down, I wonder if her return to work is more strategic than it is anything else. Yes, there's an element of like, you know, we need to... Annie Pullar: you Jodi: get back to some semblance of normalcy. But there's also, this is still an open case, this still a missing persons case with a million dollar reward for information about Nancy Guthrie. So I wonder if investigators, because it's sort of run a little cold, like there aren't that many new leads. So I wonder if investigators have said, hey, you have this incredibly public facing role, we need you to go back to work. to keep this front of mind. You have to remember that someone knows something. So criminals often would bank, I presume, on like, you know, stories and talk of their crime fading, but this is a woman that can basically keep the pressure on whoever knows something to come forward simply by showing up to the office every day. Annie Pullar: Yeah, and doing it on such a public platform that's streamed to millions of Americans every morning. One thing that really stood out for me... ⁓ that interview goes on for some time and the most heartbreaking thing is that she really, she blames herself for her mother's disappearance. She says that, you know, her mom appeared on the show several times, ⁓ she was interviewed, she was like this lovely figure, you know, she refers to the Today Show as part of her family. She brought her family onto that show you know, I think... it wouldn't be out of question that someone's just had this little tick in their brain going, well, Savannah must make good coin. Let's exploit that. And I think that just, for me, breaks my heart the most. Like this is a woman, as we said, who's built a really public profile. She's worked incredibly hard for it. She's climbed the ladder to get to the very top and is now wondering whether the very thing she worked for is the reason that her mother was snatched from her bed in the middle of the night. in her pajamas, this little old lady just going to sleep and plucked. And there's this actual doorbell camera footage showing a man who approaches that family home. And Savannah was saying in the interview that she literally replays that moment over and over and over again in her head. Like it would just be all consuming. Jodi: Yeah, the other thing about grief, which is incredibly difficult to deal with, as so many people obviously know, is this special kind of grief that you suffer when you don't know what's happened to your loved ones. And the loved ones of missing people experience this. It's called ambiguous loss. And we saw it a lot at the coroner's court covering coronial inquests, which are essentially, you know, kind of open court hearings to try and work out what's happened to people who never return. Annie Pullar: Mm. Jodi: Ambiguous loss is like a very traumatic version of grief because you aren't a there's no grave. There's no burial. There's no funeral. There are no answers. so Savannah Guthrie is obviously living with incredible pain and her she's living with the guilt of feeling like she might have caused this and she's also dealing with ambiguous loss. know, ransom notes have been sent several times to outlets like TMZ to the family to police. Savannah says that they've responded to two that they felt were legitimate. She says that in the interview, but one of them said they know where the body is. And another said, we saw Nancy Guthrie alive in Mexico. Like the uncertainty of what has actually happened to her and where she is must just be eating that family up. ⁓ know, and Savannah Guthrie has to deal with that now she's returned to work every day in front of millions of viewers. Annie Pullar: Yeah, you can only hope that she gets the answers soon, but I do want to shift gears if we can say that. ⁓ For those of you who are- Jodi: It's actually very, it's a good term, given our next story. I don't know, does a spaceship have gears? I don't even know. Annie Pullar: Jodie somehow become a bit of a space fan in the last 24 hours. Jodi: 24 hours. Yeah, this is a story I gave that I had very little interest in full disclosure, but then my partner yesterday was watching the Artemis 2 touchdown on Earth in real time and it moved me to tears. Annie Pullar: Yes, moved her so much that this is why we are covering it. But I have to say it all played out on live television. I had no idea that it was even taking place, which is a shocking reflection of ⁓ my knowledge. But anyway, four astronauts splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego after flying further into space than any others before. It was an absolutely insane moment. Jodi: Thank Thank Annie Pullar: you Jodi: Can I just say, okay, like it's got me in the feels a lot like a good play by play call during a sporting match. That commentator, I listened to him for, I don't know, two hours, but he just had it on in the lounge room yesterday morning. He was poetry in motion. The way he called that, was unbelievable. Oh! Annie Pullar: There was something, there was actually something really inspiring about it. It's almost what you want to listen to before you're going into a major life moment just to rev yourself up. But yeah, I'm now... Jodi: Yeah, well that major life moment for me is this podcast recording, so I'm glad I've been jeered up. But let's just talk about some of the statistics that clearly you had no idea about and I didn't know until yesterday. So it's NASA's Artemis 2 mission. It undertook a near perfect, they actually use the term a bullseye landing. So it was a near perfect nine day mission to the moon and back. They circumnavigated the moon, so they went around the back of the moon. They didn't actually land on it. This was a preparatory mission. so that Artemis III can potentially land on the moon. On board were Commander Reed Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, who is the first African-American man to reach the moon, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. So this is insane. The highest speed it reached was 33 times the speed of sound. But then once it entered back into the Earth's atmosphere, use those parachutes that you saw. to slow it down to 19 miles an hour. That's craziness. It was so poetic, so beautiful. And I also have to admit something incredibly embarrassing. So as I said, I was mesmerized not only by what it looked like, but obviously the sound of the commentary and you can hear them speaking from NASA HQ. You can hear them talking to the crew on board, which is awesome. And it made me realize because NASA headquarters is in Houston, Texas. Annie Pullar: Mmm. I know where this is going. Jodi: And every time, yeah, and every time they patched back to the spacecraft, they'd be like, Houston. And that's, I realized by the phrase, Houston, we have a problem. I realized that's where I came from. And I ran out of the, I literally ran out of my, bedroom and I was like, ⁓ my God, babe. I realized it and Drew was like, ⁓ Annie Pullar: I'm so glad that you've been on such an educational and spiritual journey and that you've also taken me along for the ride. I had not been paying nearly enough attention. ⁓ And when Jodie, like she literally called me, she's like, if there's one thing you have to do, you have to watch this splashdown video. I'm like, okay, great. Putting that to the top of the priority list, but it is genuinely phenomenal. ⁓ I also heard this theory on another podcast that actually resonated quite hard with me considering that I had been clearly on another planet, ⁓ but that we've been so saturated by Hollywood movies, you know, the interstellars, the gravities, the Star Wars, that when real space travel actually happens, it doesn't register the same way. Our brains just go, yep, seen it, ⁓ it's almost too cinematic to feel real. ⁓ But yeah, I just want to clarify this wasn't CGI. This was actually real. ⁓ And it was incredible. Jodi: Yeah, but you know, you know what's interesting about that? Cause think you're right. We have been saturated with like computer generated images of what space looks like. ⁓ but we also have billionaires like Bezos who tried to do this and sent up, you know, Katy Perry and his wife. Like for me, that just didn't have the same sense of awe that Artemis II did. And I read something that called it competency porn. And I actually think Annie Pullar: Mm. Hahaha Jodi: That's what it is. This is for real people with real lives and real stories who have managed to do the unthinkable and for and it's that sort of like triumph over personal adversity and just the power of humanity that I think got me in the feels like Bezos whatever boring cash not impressed. Yeah Yeah Annie Pullar: Mm. Yeah, whatever Katy Perry, not impressed by you. No, but you know, I think also the stakes were just so high here. Before it splashed down, there's apparently this six minute blackout window where the crew lose comms. So in that six minutes, everyone essentially in the control center is just waiting. for them to actually resurface and let everyone know that they're okay. And it's that period of time that is the most risky that anything can happen. I listened to this interview with NASA's associate administrator and he said, when you fly any crew, you can almost be paralyzed by the risks because you become so close to them, you know their families, you understand what's at stake. And he finished with 53 years ago, humanity left the moon this time. we return to stay. Anyway, I'm sitting there watching this like I just survived a night camping in the Northern Territory. So we're all achieving things. ⁓ Jodi: big things to the moon and back. But I do want to talk about Christina Koch, the woman who was on the flight. was, for context, she spent almost a year living on the International Space Station back in 2019, which is kind of like just this science lab where they just conduct all this incredible research orbiting Earth with people full time. And she was there just before the pandemic. So she knows space incredibly well. She's extremely experienced and I just have I think what's been so amazing about Artemis 2 for me is not only the landing but how these astronauts have approached this mission they're all incredibly wise, grounded, humble people so I actually want to play this can we listen to what Christina said? I just think this is so important. know, on this podcast, we talk so much about what is essentially a very divided world. I don't think things have been this difficult for a really long time, financially, politically. ⁓ And I just think there are so many moments like that. They speak about togetherness, they speak about their messages of hope. And I just think it was so important. Also just a few other tidbits, if I may. They named a crater. Annie Pullar: Hmm. Let her have her moment. Jodi: My PhD in Artemis too. They named a crater on the moon after their aircraft. It's called integrity. I'm obsessed with it. They also got a call from Donald Trump who manages to sneak into every story. And I guess it really begs the question, like, can you go anywhere in this universe for a moment of peace and quiet? But I don't know. I just think the whole thing felt majestic and it's a reminder. And it was for me, ⁓ one of the, just the last thing I loved that actually brought a tear to my eye. Annie Pullar: No, no, you can't. Jodi: One of them said as they were coming back to Earth, they could see a beautiful sunrise over Western Australia. Anyway, it's just a reminder of like how small and insignificant we are in this huge universe. Annie Pullar: on that profound note, we'll wrap this week's episode. Consider yourself covered with the news of the week. ⁓ Don't forget to follow and rate us on Spotify and social media. Jodi: Thank you so much for listening. We will see you on covered next week.