News Weakly with Sami Shah
by Sami Shah
News Weakly is the sharpest, funniest, and most professional news satire podcast in Australia—where we punch the news in the headlines… weakly. Hosted by multi-award-winning comedian, journalist, and author Sami Shah, the show delivers a fast-paced, fiercely intelligent breakdown of the biggest stories in politics, global affairs, and culture. With a background that spans stand-up comedy, radio broadcasting, and serious journalism—including bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, and ABC RN—Sami cuts through the noise with biting satire, relentless wit, and just enough sarcasm to keep us all from screaming into the void. News Weakly isn’t just about the headlines—it’s about the hypocrisy, the absurdity, and the sheer chaos behind them. Whether it's Australian politics, international disasters, or billionaires doing dumb things, Sami delivers a fresh, fearless take that keeps listeners informed and</em
Episodes
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Israel Election 2026: Why Netanyahu Might Be The Best Politician Alive
Israel has voted, Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his parliamentary majority — and he may still remain prime minister. This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks back at Netanyahu’s thirty-year career: Yitzhak Rabin and the 1996 election, coalition deals, corruption charges, far-right allies, the...
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Saudi Arabia Executes Two Bangladeshis: Migrant Worker Abuse & a Hajj/Umrah Boycott
Saudi Arabia has executed two Bangladeshi nationals for an unspecified “immoral act” inside a mosque in Mecca. Bangladesh says it wasn’t warned, the families are still seeking answers, and the viral story that they were newlyweds executed for kissing doesn’t appear to be true. This week on News...
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Malala, Gaza, Conspiracies & the Collapse of Trust
NEWS WEAKLY 232 – Malala, Gaza, Conspiracies & the Collapse of Trust Why do people with perfectly good reasons to distrust governments sometimes end up distrusting the victim instead? This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah starts with the strange hostility towards Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan, then...
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October 7 Mourning, Flydubai Conspiracies, Coalition Migration Cuts & OpenAI’s Medicare Breach
NEWS WEAKLY 231 – October 7 Mourning, Flydubai Conspiracies, Coalition Migration Cuts & OpenAI’s Medicare Breach This week on News Weakly: three years after October 7, Israelis and Palestinians are still being told their grief needs the correct political disclaimer. Then a Flydubai attack becomes…
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Australia’s New Student Visa Rules, Nyadol Nyuon & Macklemore’s Palestine Controversy
This week on News Weakly: Tony Burke tells international students to leave the family at home, while British backpackers discover the migration system has a loyalty program. Also, Nyadol Nyuon gets Yassmined for saying she has no intention of assimilating, despite apparently doing more for...
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The Blast Radius: How 9/11 Remade Pakistan
Twenty-five years after 9/11, everyone knows where Ground Zero was. But where did the blast radius end? This special edition of News Weakly follows one country through the aftermath: Pakistan. From the CIA-backed Afghan jihad and the rise of the Taliban, through Musharraf’s alliance with George…
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Getting Shot: Antisemitism and the Loyalty Test
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah revisits a 2022 argument about the Sydney Festival boycott after The Shot brands him a “liberal Zionist coward” for criticising two of its headlines as demonstrations of antisemitism. From Israel and Gaza to Mossad-payroll conspiracies, white saviour politics,...
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The End of the World with Flared Pants
Everyone agrees the world is ending. The only disagreement is which catastrophe gets top billing. Starting with Jimmy Carter’s 1979 “crisis of confidence” speech, Sami Shah travels through Bangladesh, Munich, Chile, Watergate, oil shocks, coups, terrorism, information overload and nuclear panic…
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What Is The Sentence?
NEWS WEAKLY 226 – What Is The Sentence? Last week, News Weakly opened with Jason Arday. This week, after his sudden death, Sami Shah asks a harder question: what is public accountability actually supposed to achieve? From Arday to Louis C.K., Warren Ellis and Neil Gaiman, this documentary looks…
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The Story Machine: AI, Fabulism & What We’re Really Buying
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah goes long on artificial intelligence, authenticity and the increasingly difficult question: how was this thing actually made? From Cambridge professor Jason Arday’s disputed biography and Mahmood Fazal’s anonymous-source scandal at the ABC, to novelist Jerry...
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Kmart Keating, Douglas Murray's wet dream & Hamas’s Gun Garage
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah watches Victorian Labor replace Jacinta Allan with her own deputy and announce a fresh start from inside the same government. Meanwhile, tens of thousands cross from Morocco into Spain’s African enclave of Ceuta, producing a humanitarian emergency, unstable...
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Rise of the Cockroaches
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah follows India’s Cockroach Janta Party from a Supreme Court insult and viral meme to mass youth protests over examination leaks, unemployment and corruption. How did a cockroach holding a mobile phone become the symbol of a generation losing faith in education,...
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Reading Between The Headlines
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah follows two news stories through the online outrage machine. An ABC report about climate disasters increasing the risk of child marriage becomes “the ABC defends Muslim child brides”. Meanwhile, a review of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Gaza casualty...
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Modi, Telstra & Iran’s Martyr Machine
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at how disasters become PR opportunities. Telstra somehow fixes a nationwide outage by creating another one, Narendra Modi gets the rock-star treatment in Melbourne while human rights concerns barely get a mention, and China reminds the Pacific what...
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America at 250 needs more Street Hawk
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah marks America's 250th birthday by asking what its greatest populist, Huey Long, can teach us about Donald Trump, democracy, and why every generation keeps looking for a king. Plus, Australia's aged care system discovers that maybe humans should assess human...
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Bloodsport of the Deal
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah explains why Donald Trump's favourite movie might also explain his foreign policy. From Jean-Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport to the Iran war, this episode explores the dangers of confusing spectacle with strategy, humiliation with victory, and refusing to flinch...
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One Culture Under Pauline
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah takes a deep dive into Pauline Hanson’s first National Press Club address and the global rise of populist politics. From multiculturalism and immigration to childcare, abortion, transgender rights, and the meaning of “Australian culture”, Hanson’s speech offers…
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Hughsie and Cry
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at how every political problem somehow ends up being blamed on immigrants. Comedian Dave Hughes goes viral railing against Labor’s housing policies, permanent residents, and falling property values, accidentally arriving at the same talking points that…
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Grace Tame, Charlie Pickering & The Cancellation Olympics
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah dives into the latest Australian culture war, where an autism podcast somehow becomes a referendum on Israel, Gaza, free speech, antisemitism, cancellation, and who should be allowed to work. The ABC finds itself under fire after commissioning a podcast hosted…
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Abbott Returns, NDIS Cuts & The War on Oman
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at what happens when political parties mistake nostalgia for strategy and spreadsheets for compassion. Tony Abbott returns as Liberal Party president, raising questions about whether the Coalition plans to solve its existential crisis or simply appoint it...
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Pauline Hanson’s Socialist Gas & AI Lit Prizes
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at what happens when populism accidentally stumbles into good policy while everything else quietly catches fire. The federal government tweaks negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, triggering a media meltdown from a property-owning class...
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Broken Promises, Gambling Cowards & The Empathy Wars
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at what happens when politics stops pretending to care equally about everyone. Labor’s latest budget is compared to the brutal Abbott-Hockey austerity budget of 2014, revealing how conservative outrage mysteriously only appears when wealthy Australians…
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Pink Flamingos & The Objectivity Wars
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at the stories Australia keeps turning into culture wars instead of solving. The death of Kumanjayi Little Baby reignites debate around Indigenous communities, systemic neglect, Welcome to Country ceremonies, and the country’s ongoing inability to…
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From the River Indus to the Mediterranean Sea
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah takes on one of the most circular, exhausting debates in modern politics: how we talk about Israel and Palestine—and why the conversation keeps going nowhere. Using the comparison between Pakistan and Israel, this episode reframes the discussion away from…
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NoPEC, Air Pauline & The Journalism Tax
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at power, money, and the systems that insist everything is working fine while clearly not working at all. The UAE exits OPEC, raising the prospect of cheaper oil and a full-blown Gulf power shuffle. Pauline Hanson receives a $1 million plane from Gina...
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NDIS Cuts, Gas Lobby Power & Free Speech Meltdowns
This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah looks at what governments call “hard choices” and what they quietly refuse to choose. The federal government plans to remove 160,000 people from the NDIS, citing unsustainable costs, while economists and crossbench MPs push for higher taxes on gas companies...
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208 - Blockading the Blockade, The 'D' in NDIS is 'Defence' & Iran’s Execution Boom
NEWS WEAKLY 208 – April 18, 2026 This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah returns to a world that somehow got worse while he was away. The Middle East descends into a surreal loop of ceasefires, blockades, and immediate betrayals, with Trump now proposing to “blockade the blockade.” In Australia, Ben...
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207 - Ceasefire Pending, Rejected, Threatened, Walked Back, Re-Threatened!
NEWS WEAKLY – 207 – 28 March 2026 | Australia Politics, Middle East Ceasefire, Teacher Strikes, ABC Walkout TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah breaks down the biggest news stories in Australia and around the world, including the latest Middle East ceasefire developments,...
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206 – From Drone Strikes to DJs
NEWS WEAKLY #206 – War on Iran, RBA Interest Rate Rise, Sydney DJ Controversy & Forgotten Afghanistan War This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah breaks down the escalating Iran-Israel-US conflict, Australia’s latest interest rate hike, a Sydney Biennale DJ controversy, and the war in Afghanistan…
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205 - Are you Hussain or Yazid?
NEWS WEAKLY – The Story of Karbala This week, I step away from the headlines to tell one of the most powerful stories in the Muslim world: the Battle of Karbala. The death of Husain ibn Ali in 680 CE shaped the split between Sunni and Shia Islam and created a moral narrative about power, justice,...
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204 – Married At First Strike
NEWS WEAKLY 204 – Married At First Strike, Melbourne Saves Australia, and the Geography Police Episode Summary Missiles fly, oil markets panic, reality television becomes a geopolitical framework, and Queensland decides the best way to fight hate is by outlawing metaphors about rivers. This week,...
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203 - Bad vs Bad: A Beginner’s Guide to Picking a Side in World War Whatever
NEWS WEAKLY 203 – March 3, 2026 Everything escalates, no one learns, and somehow the only consistent casualties are civilians. This week, News Weakly looks at the wars you are obsessing over, the wars you have forgotten, and the deeply online way Australians are processing both. Top Stories of…
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202 - Difficult Words
NEWS WEAKLY 202, 28 Feb 2026 Episode title: Difficulty Level: National Hello and welcome to News Weakly, where we punch the news in the headlines weakly. This week, the world is in multiple active spirals, but Australia has bravely chosen to centre a word association game like it is the Cuban...
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NEWS WEAKLY 201 – Values, Vibes & Victorian Vindictiveness
NEWS WEAKLY 201 – 21ST FEBRUARY 2026 This week on News Weakly: Australian values get workshopped into meaninglessness, Pauline Hanson re-releases her Greatest Bigots collection, ISIS brides become the nation’s worst dating story, and Victoria’s Big Build proves the only thing constructed...
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News Weakly 200 (Rant Edition): THE CONSPIRACY PROBLEM
Episode 200: THE CONSPIRACY PROBLEM Summary A suicide bombing in a Shia mosque barely registers before the algorithm moves on, and that erasure opens the door to something darker. This episode looks at why conspiracy thinking no longer lives on the fringes, but feels increasingly rational in a...
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NEWS WEAKLY 199 – Can You Feel the Cohesion?
Social Cohesion, News Now… NEWS WEAKLY 199 – 07 Feb 2026 This week on News Weakly: Australia discovers its newest national value, which mostly means everyone should stop talking while the government imports a global conflict and acts surprised when it doesn’t calm anyone down. The Epstein Files,...
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News Weakly 198: Minister for Islam
NEWS WEAKLY 198 – 31st January 2026 This week on News Weakly: • Scott Morrison resurfaces to reform Islam, Western civilisation, and reality itself, proposing authoritarian religious controls while insisting this is what freedom looks like. • A bomb is thrown into a First Nations gathering in...
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News Weakly 197: Strong Laws, Weak Thinking
NEWS WEAKLY 197 – 24th January 2026 This week on News Weakly: • George R. R. Martin gives an interview that finally, definitively kills The Winds of Winter and with it the last surviving shard of millennial optimism. • The Coalition explodes over hate-speech laws it demanded, negotiated, diluted,...
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News Weakly 196: Not Talking 'Bout the Revolution
NEWS WEAKLY 196 – 17th January 2026 Top Stories of the Week Running From Iran A nationwide internet blackout, mass killings, exile fantasies, and the danger of confusing silence for stability. Albo Hates Hate After Bondi, Australia reaches for sweeping hate laws that try to arrest a feeling…
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Quick Announcement about my new documentary!
Just a quick announcement that the next episode of News Weakly will contain a bonus audio documentary about News Satire. Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, journalist, and broadcaster. For more: http://thesamishah.com Theme music 'Historic Anticipation' by Paul Mottram This...
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News Weakly 195 - The Empire Forgets to Whisper
NEWS WEAKLY 195 – 10 January 2026 This week on News Weakly, the empire stops pretending, the internet gets unplugged, a royal commission settles in for the long haul, and a writers’ festival demonstrates once again that its strongest literary skill is drafting a press release explaining why…
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News Weakly 194 - Ahmed Al Ahmed teaches Journalism 101
NEWS WEAKLY 194 – Media Ethics, Paper Wars, and a Currency in Freefall 03 January 2026 TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK • A terror hero meets Australian media ethics • Humanitarian aid fails an ideological compliance test • Iran’s economy collapses again • Australia’s regulator regulates itself QUOTE OF…
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News Weakly 193 - Overwrought Analogy For Curbs On Free Speech
NEWS WEAKLY 193 - 24th Dec, 2025 Temporary Democracy, Permanent Consequences This week on News Weakly, grief turns into legislation at speed, history offers an inconvenient warning, and Australia tests whether banning protest actually makes anyone safer. QUOTE OF THE WEEK “You don’t delete anger…
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News Weakly 192 - Politics Before Pain
NEWS WEAKLY – 20 Dec, 2025 TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK A national tragedy becomes a political talking point Also, why the antisemitism plan didn’t come with a time machine All that, and more, on News Weakly. Quote of the Week “You can’t spend a decade attacking the fire brigade and then act shocked...
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News Weakly 191 - Conditional Condolences
NEWS WEAKLY – Episode 191 Conditional Condolences 17th December, 2025 This week on News Weakly, Sami Shah delivers a long-form editorial on the Bondi attack and the reaction that followed, focusing not on the crime itself but on the way grief gets filtered, qualified, and politically managed...
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News Weakly 190 - Touch Grass, File Receipts
News Weakly 190 - 13th Dec, 2025 Top stories of the week TEENS UNPLUGGED, NATION UNBOTHERED RECEIPT OF THE WEEK BEHIND BARS AND BEYOND SCRUTINY BETTING ON THE APOCALYPSE Quote of the week “Advertising people will arrive like seagulls at a chip shop.” Credits Sami Shah is a multi-award-winning...
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News Weakly 189 - Drowning, Donbas, and Defence Dysfunction
NEWS WEAKLY 189 – 06 December, 2025 TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK SOUTHEAST ASIA SINKS WHILE THE WORLD SCROLLS! ALSO, DUMBASS IN THE DONBAS! AND, THE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE DEFENDS ITSELF FROM THE INDEFENSIBLE! All that and more on News Weakly! Hello and welcome to News Weakly, where we punch the…
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News Weakly 188 - Joyce Makes A Choice
Top Stories of the Week Joyce Makes A Choice Niqab-solutely Not Helping Fraudshore Processing Inferno of Neglect Quote of the Week “We’re essentially running the world’s most expensive Patreon, but instead of supporting artists we’re funding a government that appears to convert public money...
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News Weakly 187 - The Epstein Files Won’t Save Us
NEWS WEAKLY 187 – 22 November, 2025 Epstein’t Going to Change a Damn Thing! Peace Plan, War Everywhere! COP-ping Out! QUOTE OF THE WEEK “That is not peace, that is a diet war.” SUPPORT THE SHOW News Weakly is kept independent and listener funded, thanks to the generosity of paid supporters on...
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186 - You'd Think After 20 Years I'd Be Better At This
186 - You'd Think After 20 Years I'd Be Better At This A special commemoration of my 20 years in standup comedy. Bit of a weird episode this one! Hope you enjoy it! Support the Show Keep News Weakly independent, and fuelled by sarcasm! Join the Patreon at patreon.com/samishah. Sami Shah is a...
About this show
News Weakly is the sharpest, funniest, and most professional news satire podcast in Australia—where we punch the news in the headlines… weakly.
Hosted by multi-award-winning comedian, journalist, and author Sami Shah, the show delivers a fast-paced, fiercely intelligent breakdown of the biggest stories in politics, global affairs, and culture. With a background that spans stand-up comedy, radio broadcasting, and serious journalism—including bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, and ABC RN—Sami cuts through the noise with biting satire, relentless wit, and just enough sarcasm to keep us all from screaming into the void.
News Weakly isn’t just about the headlines—it’s about the hypocrisy, the absurdity, and the sheer chaos behind them. Whether it's Australian politics, international disasters, or billionaires doing dumb things, Sami delivers a fresh, fearless take that keeps listeners informed and</em
Hosted by
Sami Shah
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