ANU Meet The Author Series
Julia Baird will be in conversation with Katharine Murphy on the revised and updated edition, with a new foreword by Annabel Crabb, of Julia Baird’s seminal work, Media Tarts, a powerful insight into how the media treats female politicians
Media Tarts is essential reading from one of our foremost journalists and political commentators, providing a powerful, sobering and incisive insight into how deep the currents of misogyny run, and how the media continues to treat female politicians. If we want to understand what is happening today, and avoid the endless repeating of the same story, we need to reckon with our past.
Based on a series of extensive interviews, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the influence of a generation of prominent female politicians on the Australian political system, exploring the part played by the press in their downfall. Almost two decades since the book’s original publication, it is evident how little has changed. “When men were featured often in the press, they were rising stars. When women were featured often in the press, they were media tarts”.
‘I found Media Tarts striking and instructive when first I read it. In a new era of attentiveness to women’s experience, let its new iteration fire the pistons of change.’ Annabel Crabb
Julia Baird is a globally renowned author and award-winning journalist. She hosts The Drum on ABC TV and writes columns for The New York Times and The Sydney Morning Herald. Her first book, Media Tarts, was based on her history PhD. After moving to the United States to take up a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, she became a columnist and senior editor at Newsweek in New York. Julia’s biography of Queen Victoria was published in several countries to critical acclaim and was one of The New York Times’ top ten books of 2016.
Katharine Murphy has been Guardian Australia’s political editor since 2016, working in Canberra’s parliamentary press gallery for 23 years. She is a regular commentator on television and radio and is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Canberra, from which she was awarded an honorary doctorate in October 2019. Katharine has won the Paul Lyneham award for excellence in press gallery journalism and has been a Walkley finalist twice. Katharine’s latest publication is her 2020 Quarterly Essay, The End of Certainty: Scott Morrison and Pandemic Politics.
The vote of thanks will be given by Mark Kenny, Professor at the ANU Australian Studies Institute. Mark hosts the popular ANU podcast Democracy Sausage and is a regular on the ABC’s Insiders program, Sky News Agenda, and radio programs across the country.
In accordance to the current COVID-19 guidelines in the ACT, attendees may have to wear masks to attend the event. Attendees are requested to review and follow ACT Health guidelines before attending the event.