It is surely one of the greatest hustles of our time – the way that podcast bros declare themselves freedom of speech warriors. Karl Stefanovic attempted this swindle on Friday, when, having been sacked from the Today show, he declared himself “free”.

When Stefanovic accepted the Logie for most popular television personality in 2011, he paid tribute to legendary political journalist Laurie Oakes.

Karl Stefanovic is free! To delete the podcast he made in the name of free speech

Jacqueline Maley

Columnist and senior journalist [SMH]

“He’s the reason why I’m in this business and why I want to be in this business of journalists for the rest of my life,” Stefanovic said.

But Woodward or Bernstein he ain’t. On the contrary, he has undermined the sort of excellent journalism of which he is incapable – notably exposés, in this newspaper, of neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, and accused war criminal Ben-Roberts Smith.

This week, Stefanovic was liberated from his employment after he interviewed, on his side-hustle podcast, a far-right, Islamophobic nasty who struggles to get any airplay in his home country of England. Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) is a violent criminal whose rhetoric about Muslims is hate speech, pure and simple.

Probably the most egregious thing about the freshly reinvented Stefanovic’s interview with Robinson was not the fact that he did it. It was its matey tone.

Stefanovic praised Robinson for his “tenacity” and “courage” and signed off with “I love you, mate”.

He asked no penetrating questions. He did not interrogate Robinson’s violent background or prolific criminal history. He did not offer correctives to any of the moronic untruths he peddles about Muslim people.

If you substituted “Jew” for “Muslim” in any of Robinson’s rhetoric, Stefanovic would not be able to claim he was simply standing up for freedom of speech by interviewing this person. He would rightly be called out for abetting the endangerment of Jewish people.

Really, the only speech such podcast bros are freeing is their own. Their desire to hear their own voice, uninterrupted by co-hosts or a line-up of studio guests, is boundless. Their verbosity is epic. Their questions are often longer than the answers they allow from their carefully selected interview subjects.

They self-liberate from editorial concerns about length – Joe Rogan, the world’s most popular podcaster, sometimes records three-hour episodes. They self-liberate from the conventions of journalism, most notably any ethical concerns about giving an uncontested airing to extremist views. Ah, but at least their speech is free, right?

Sure. Stefanovic is now free to pursue what has become the contemporary version of the traditional male midlife crisis – starting a podcast.

He is free of the constraints of a reported $2 million contract. He is free from the security of employment by a network that gave him such latitude that he could show up drunk to work, and it was treated as a lark (Nine is also the owner of this masthead).

Occasional bouts of on-air drunkenness aside, you don’t survive in the media industry, particularly in the cut-throat business of television for as long as Stefanovic has, without being skilled and charismatic.

Breakfast television is a high-wire act that must require incredible executive function.

Stefanovic is also clever enough to realise that his style of television, and his “larrikin” persona, was becoming dated, precisely at the moment when free-to-air television is contracting to the point of possible oblivion.

Of all the traditional media disrupted by the internet, free-to-air television is the most imperilled. If there was a good moment to jump off the ship, it is probably now.

Stefanovic has always had an instinctive understanding of the attention economy, and the attention economy has never been more important.

As traditional media fragments and social media commands more and more of our time, exponentially greater scandals are required to capture people’s focus.

And if you can dress up this blatant grab for attention as a free-speech crusade, then you can laugh all the way to the crypto-bank.

As a long-time host of the Today show, which competed against (and lately, mostly lost to) the rival Sunrise program, Stefanovic was always a pro at generating headlines to win viewer share.

Apparently, he did this instinctually.

There was the time he confessed to wearing the same suit on air for a year, to highlight the double standards his female co-hosts faced when it came to their appearance.

The time, as referenced, he showed up drunk on air following the Logies. He later said it was an error of judgment.

In 2025, he showed up on the Logies red carpet and said that the awards show had become “too woke”.

“Everyone is a bit conscious of doing the wrong thing, and that is TV in general,” he said, and called for the return of “drunk biffo buffoonery”.

He was right – that culture has dissipated, both in television and in newspapers. Those of us who were ever victims of it, or bystanders to it, do not lament it.

Another way to describe this “woke” culture might be “a safer workplace”.

On one reading, Stefanovic is less of a culture war warrior and freedom fighter than he is someone who has aged out of a game that has changed the rules around him.

He doesn’t like the new rules, so he has embarked for greener pastures, where no rules apply. Or rather, where the only rule is himself.

Except, of course, when you get too much heat from sponsors and the public, and you erase the podcast you made the name of untrammelled freedom: Stefanovic’s Robinson podcast episode was deleted from all platforms following the outcry, although not before Pauline Hanson had reposted it to her website.

To bungle George Orwell, in the world of the podcast bro, some speech is freer than others.

Jacqueline Maley is an author and columnist.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/karl-stefanovic-is-free-to-delete-the-podcast-he-made-in-the-name-of-free-speech-20260626-p60ade.html

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