Whale Oil - an investigation (broadcast version): July 3, 2019

Lillian Hanly speaks to writer and journalist Margie Thomson:

Margie has been investigating the story of Matt Blomfield for the past three and a half years. This investigation turned into a book called Whale Oil, a book whose foreword was written by Nicky Hager. Who is Matt Blomfield you ask? I had no idea either. But I did know Whale Oil. I knew Nicky Hager. I knew Dirty Politics. I knew Cameron Slater, or at least I knew some things. So when I found out about this book, I knew I wanted to read it. I knew I wanted to read it even more when it came out that someone had been held up at the airport with an embargoed manuscript with a foreword by Nicky Hager.. I was ridiculously intrigued. And so we got Margie Thomson in studio to have a chat about everything. It turns out this is a story of one of the few people who stood up to Cameron Slater. Margie and I ended up speaking for 45 minutes about fake news, the definition of property, bullying and harassment and the importance of critical thinking. I started by asking Margie to tell us about the book...