CRASH COURSE

It was just after 10pm on a Sunday in September 2013 and I had just stepped off the set at Sky News, oblivious to the storm I’d just been caught in. As the acting editor of Women’s Agenda, I had been invited to be part of a panel to discuss the weekend’s stories. That day, I had anxiously waited to receive the topics we’d be discussing during the hourlong live-to-air program. I read all the weekend papers back to front, I scoured the web, and then, when the topics came through, I knuckled down and read the 12 or so stories that were listed.

The issues we’d be discussing ranged from Tony Abbott’s sleeping quarters in Canberra to an essay former prime minister Julia Gillard had written for The Guardian, to Syria, to gun control, to the Labor leadership, to lowering the legal age for teenagers to serve alcohol. That Sunday, while wrangling the girls and going about our day, I thought at length about the issues. I wanted to be prepared.

The [program’s] conversation was heated, as I had expected, but I thought I