Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life. The average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes in the contact with crime is
Speaker 1: left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into
Speaker 1: this world. Today, I had a fascinating chat with Mike Amore.
Speaker 1: Mike was a foreign correspondent for eighten years and in
Speaker 1: that role witness some of the worst moments in recent
Speaker 1: world history. And we talked about those moments today in
Speaker 1: New York when the planes hit the World Trade Center
Speaker 1: during the September eleventh terrorist attack, reporting from scenes of
Speaker 1: countless mass shootings in America and even Australia's own port
Speaker 1: Arthur massacre. He takes us on the ground following Hurricane
Speaker 1: Katrina and the aftermath when the people of New Orleans
Speaker 1: seem to be forgotten by their own country. We also
Speaker 1: discuss the Haiti earthquake and what it was like being
Speaker 1: involved in the rescue of an infant child who was
Speaker 1: trapped in the rubble with the dead parents for up
Speaker 1: to four days. Mike has had countless stories and adventures,
Speaker 1: and he talks about them today. Some are shocking, others
Speaker 1: are remarkable. But what I got from the conversation more
Speaker 1: than the stories, was an understanding of the importance of accurate,
Speaker 1: timely reporting and the personal cost of witnessing these events.
Speaker 1: Let's have a listen, Mike Amore, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Oh it's a pleasure. Thank you. Gary.
Speaker 1: Well, as I was saying the other day, I was
Speaker 1: walking through the airport waiting for my flight, and I
Speaker 1: found myself where I usually do at an airport, in
Speaker 1: the bookstore, and news cowboys jumped out at me. Your
Speaker 1: book and I picked that up, and I was hooked
Speaker 1: right from the start. But let you in on a
Speaker 1: little secret. My fantasy is if I ever came back
Speaker 1: to this world, i'd be a foreign correspondent. I think
Speaker 1: that stems from watching George Nigas back in the sixty
Speaker 1: minutes stays on the back of a jeep going through
Speaker 1: the war zones with a scarf around his neck, that
Speaker 1: type of thing, but fascinating life, the life of a
Speaker 1: foreign correspondent.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been very lucky. Gary. I don't think I've
Speaker 2: ever been as charismatic as George was, but yeah, I
Speaker 2: too grew up watching him, and I think that was
Speaker 2: part of the spur to being wanting to be a
Speaker 2: foreign correspondent. For me. That's the tip of the sword
Speaker 2: as far as journalism is concerned. It's what I always
Speaker 2: wanted to do, and I'm so grateful that I had
Speaker 2: the opportunity for eighteen years.
Speaker 1: It's a long time, and I think we've journalists by nature,
Speaker 1: they're curious and then ares a foreign correspondent. You find
Speaker 1: yourself in some of the most history making situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes by accident. Sometimes you don't mean to
Speaker 2: be there. Case in Points September eleven. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: a boyfriend Bendigo. So I've traveled to I've forgotten how
Speaker 2: many countries, sixty plus countries around the world, and I've
Speaker 2: seen places that most people don't get to see, in
Speaker 2: circumstances that most people don't want to see. So I'm
Speaker 2: grateful for that.
Speaker 1: How did you find yourself as a journalist? First of all,
Speaker 1: they didn't just say, hey, pluck you from the street
Speaker 1: and we want you as a foreign correspondent. How did
Speaker 1: you get into journalism and then the work that you
Speaker 1: did as a foreign correspondent.
Speaker 2: I think if my old English teacher tuned into this,
Speaker 2: if they're still alive, be saying that bloke is the
Speaker 2: last guy that we thought would be a journalist and
Speaker 2: b write a book about journalism. I almost failed Year
Speaker 2: twelve English. I sucked in Year twelve. I almost failed
Speaker 2: Year twelve completely. But my father was a newspaper printer
Speaker 2: for all of his career forty years at the local
Speaker 2: Bendigo Advertiser. So I'm the original Nepo baby. Nepotism ruled
Speaker 2: for me. I played that card and Dad got me
Speaker 2: in and I was able to become a copy person
Speaker 2: at the Bendigo Advertiser, the local paper, which was kind
Speaker 2: of part of the family for me because Dad had
Speaker 2: been there for so long. So the person out the
Speaker 2: back was not Bob the compositor. He was Uncle Bob.
Speaker 2: So yeah, nepotism. I had no right to be a journalist.
Speaker 1: We'll use it if you can.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly. It doesn't matter how you get in,
Speaker 2: I tell my son, doesn't matter how you get in, son,
Speaker 2: it's what you do when you get there, get the
Speaker 2: foot in the door to start with me, exactly.
Speaker 1: So you started out the print journalism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was a great foundation, and it was,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a unity paper, very proud paper, the
Speaker 2: Benigo Advertiser, Goldfield's paper, and it was chock full of
Speaker 2: very experienced journalists that had come back from metropolitan newspapers
Speaker 2: for a quieter life. But with them they brought this
Speaker 2: wealth of experience. So cranky, big drinking, very you know,
Speaker 2: they'd start the day off kind of grumpy and my job,
Speaker 2: my first job was to deliver them coffees to them
Speaker 2: and I'd kind of took me a while to work
Speaker 2: out while they were grumpy in the morning and then
Speaker 2: very charismatic in the afternoon. And it quickly dawned on
Speaker 2: me that they were tipping in a couple of additives
Speaker 2: to my horrible coffee.
Speaker 1: Right, your coffee was just a cover.
Speaker 2: It was definitely a cover. And back in those days,
Speaker 2: you know, about four o'clock the smoke would start hanging
Speaker 2: off the ceiling and it was a very colorful day,
Speaker 2: a colorful period of journalism. Perhaps that last generation of
Speaker 2: those colorful journals that were really heavy drinkers. They'd go
Speaker 2: down to the pub and I'd watch in aw as
Speaker 2: they down twelve pots. But they are very good at
Speaker 2: what they did, and they were hard task masters. They
Speaker 2: taught me the foundations of journalism and that's stuck with me.
Speaker 2: So I was very lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a skill set that practical on the job
Speaker 1: learning that you get and starting at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the run and working your way through. At first you
Speaker 1: might appreciate it, but when you look back now, it
Speaker 1: is the grounding that helps you throughout your career. I
Speaker 1: would imagine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And you know they were tough, tough love.
Speaker 2: Probably in today's terms, maybe they might have been accused
Speaker 2: of bullying. But I really appreciate it because I think
Speaker 2: that journalism is a discipline as much as it is anything.
Speaker 2: You have to adhere to the fundamentals of journalism, and
Speaker 2: that's something that's stuck with me throughout my career. I
Speaker 2: struggle when I first started, I don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: I thought about leaving maybe a year into the job,
Speaker 2: but they encouraged me to stick at it. So I'm
Speaker 2: not a natural to this business journalism in general, and
Speaker 2: certainly not television. I've had to work really hard to
Speaker 2: get to where I am now.
Speaker 1: The move to television, how did that occur? Was that
Speaker 1: by chance or is it something that you were aiming towards.
Speaker 2: No, I took it when I was in school. I
Speaker 2: actually did a work experience period at the local television
Speaker 2: station in Bendigo as a cameraman. By the way, because
Speaker 2: I never imagined i'd be a journalist, so in the
Speaker 2: back of my mind I was fascinated by because the
Speaker 2: difference in journalism in a local newspaper is you'll be
Speaker 2: on the phone predominantly, whereas in TV you have to
Speaker 2: go out. So that kind of always appealed to me,
Speaker 2: being out and about seeing things. And I got a
Speaker 2: job offer down in Gippsland in Country Victoria after about
Speaker 2: three years, and I went down there and spend a year.
Speaker 2: They got homesick, came back to Bendigo, back to the
Speaker 2: Benni Graddy and I bounced around regional newspapers and television
Speaker 2: until I was about twenty six when I got the
Speaker 2: job at Channel seven.
Speaker 1: And how was your first experiences live in front of
Speaker 1: the camera, Because it is daunting, like if ever you're
Speaker 1: going to make a fool of yourself, it's at that point.
Speaker 2: I've made full of myself plenty of times, and I
Speaker 2: still do my first live because we didn't do live
Speaker 2: very much back when I started, because you needed a
Speaker 2: truck and it was a lot more complicated than it
Speaker 2: is today where they use a backpack to go live.
Speaker 2: I was actually in Port Arthur when I did one
Speaker 2: of my first live hits, that terrible massacre, and I
Speaker 2: had feedback come into my ear so you could hear yourself,
Speaker 2: but because of the delay, it was like two three
Speaker 2: seconds delayed, and I thought it was someone talking to
Speaker 2: me and I froze and that scarred me for a
Speaker 2: long period of time. In fact, when I initially said
Speaker 2: to my then news director, I wanted to become a
Speaker 2: foreign correst responded he said, mate, you'd be a bloody
Speaker 2: good foreign correspondent, but you can't do a live cross
Speaker 2: to just swear you can't do a live cross to
Speaker 2: save yourself, So I can't. I can't help you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so a bit of a slap down. Well
Speaker 1: i'll go, but I know what you're talking about with
Speaker 1: that feedback, And I in my early days in the cops.
Speaker 1: If I was doing a live live cross and you've
Speaker 1: got something in your ear and it's a delay and
Speaker 1: the echoing and or you can't hear it all and
Speaker 1: you're trying to read someone's lips to anticipate what they've
Speaker 1: just asked you then to respond, yeah, it is is daunting.
Speaker 1: So I am making a living out of it. That
Speaker 1: you ended up doing it must be something. Okay, I
Speaker 1: can get better at this. I will achieve this. Were
Speaker 1: you're practicing home in front of the mirror or.
Speaker 2: Not quite not quite that. I just had to stick
Speaker 2: with it, and you know, just put those horrible voices
Speaker 2: in your head, you know, to the to the back
Speaker 2: of the room kind of thing. You know, you just
Speaker 2: have to ignore those negative kind of feelings. And we
Speaker 2: all go through that in one way or another in life.
Speaker 2: And that's just a learning experience, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a challenge, but it's worth it.
Speaker 2: In the end.
Speaker 1: This is a true crime podcast. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about some of the crimes that you've covered in your
Speaker 1: eighteen years as a foreign correspondent. But I just want
Speaker 1: to go through some of the things that you've done
Speaker 1: which is not necessarily crime related, but as a foreign correspondent,
Speaker 1: I think if I read this out, people might get
Speaker 1: a sense of why I consider it potentially a dream job. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've traveled to over sixty countries. You're in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong for the handover of the British rule, the aftermath
Speaker 1: of the Swiss Canyoning disaster, in which twenty one adventure
Speaker 1: of tourists died, including fourteen Australians. I'd forgotten about that.
Speaker 1: That was a horrendous situation. Hasn't You've headed towards hurricanes
Speaker 1: and earthquakes, been to war zones, ask the American president's questions.
Speaker 1: You're probably glad you're not asking the current American president questions.
Speaker 1: I have an own question, but I have it. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll touch on that. You've covered funerals of Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, whole range
Speaker 1: of things attended five Olympic Games, two Football World Cups,
Speaker 1: wrestled with wild Ana Condas who were taking over the
Speaker 1: Everglades being detained in China deport them from an African nation,
Speaker 1: invited to play basketball with Lebron James, and you hung
Speaker 1: out with Andy Thomas, Australia's first astronaut. And what's the
Speaker 1: space shuttle? That is? If that wasn't your job, and
Speaker 1: you just these are the things I want to see
Speaker 1: and do and you put that on a bucket list.
Speaker 1: They're the type of things that you want to experience
Speaker 1: in life. What's your memories of those type of events
Speaker 1: that you've seen and witnessed?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, to see four space shuttles take off Gary,
Speaker 2: including the last one. People pay to see that, And
Speaker 2: I got paid to go and do that. So that's
Speaker 2: kind of one of the benefits of the jobs. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of drawbacks. I saw a lot of horrible things,
Speaker 2: but I also got to do a lot of things
Speaker 2: that people dream about, like yourself. You know, just a
Speaker 2: space shuttle that feel that rumble and hear that roar
Speaker 2: and you kind of reminds you of the power of humanity.
Speaker 2: Then on the flip side of that you see the
Speaker 2: power of Mother Nature which kind of overwhelms the power
Speaker 2: of humanity no matter how strong we become. With earthquakes
Speaker 2: and Haiti and hurricanes like Katrina. Yeah, these are things
Speaker 2: that they stick with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the power of nature. In your book, you talked
Speaker 1: about the volcano eruption in Hawaii. Tell us about that,
Speaker 1: because that would be fascinating. That's saying nature. It's urorus.
Speaker 2: So Kilaway is on the Big Island of Hawaii and
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, these big fisures started breaking up into
Speaker 2: neighborhoods and it was an eruption, but literally fountains of
Speaker 2: molten lava would break up into suburban streets and just
Speaker 2: swallow up these homes. And we went along and we're
Speaker 2: told we weren't going to get anywhere near these molten
Speaker 2: lava fountains because it was just too dangerous. But we
Speaker 2: happened upon a group of people who are gathering in
Speaker 2: this shopping center and they were talking to some National
Speaker 2: guard and we just pulled up and it turned out
Speaker 2: they were local media about to get an organized tour
Speaker 2: into these neighborhoods that were being swallowed up by the
Speaker 2: lava and using my Australian accent, which I often relied upon.
Speaker 2: Could we tag along, mate, and the National Guard had
Speaker 2: served with Australians in the Middle East. Oh you know,
Speaker 2: it normally takes twenty four hours for you to get
Speaker 2: to prove but you auses we love you would jump
Speaker 2: in the back. So we found ourselves like that card. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so we did it a lot in the back of
Speaker 2: this National Guard hum v going into these neighborhoods. Just
Speaker 2: again talking about the power of mother nature. We were
Speaker 2: maybe one hundred meters from this fountain of molten lava
Speaker 2: and we're told by the National Guard troops, if we
Speaker 2: tell you to run, drop your equipment and run, because
Speaker 2: they had these meters that measured the sulfur in the air,
Speaker 2: and he said, if it wind swings around and pushes
Speaker 2: it in our direction, we've got to go or we'll
Speaker 2: be dead in seconds. So that was the That was
Speaker 2: kind of the background, but it was I was just
Speaker 2: in awe of seeing this in person. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible what you see. And the title of
Speaker 1: the book news Cowboys. You've got to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of risk taking, calculate the risks, but things like that,
Speaker 1: to get close, to get the shot, to experience what
Speaker 1: you're reporting on, you would have come across a couple
Speaker 1: of dodgy situations, I would imagine, or risky situations.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean we called ourselves news cowboys. It
Speaker 2: was the kind of the tongue in cheek kind of
Speaker 2: reference to what we felt like. We're always riding into
Speaker 2: a new adventure, underprepared and not really knowing what we're doing,
Speaker 2: and somehow, more often than not, we pulled it off.
Speaker 2: I mean, we went into Libya during the Arab spring
Speaker 2: and in the back of smuggled ourselves basically in the
Speaker 2: back of ambulances that were being taken to the to
Speaker 2: the front line. We've chased cartel members in Mexico. It
Speaker 2: didn't actually make the book, but these small towns in
Speaker 2: deep Mexico had run the cartel out of their villages
Speaker 2: and use their weapons and against them, and they were
Speaker 2: hunting them, and we went on the hunt with them,
Speaker 2: and they told us we're going to get into a
Speaker 2: fire fight, and yeah, so yeah, I mean we took
Speaker 2: we took risks. Sometimes I'd like to say they were calculated.
Speaker 2: Perhaps we're not that smart, and we weren't that calculator,
Speaker 2: but we, thankfully we're still here to tell the story.
Speaker 1: Do you get do you get conditioned to it? Like
Speaker 1: is it become like an adrenaline? And it's horrible to say,
Speaker 1: but I do understand that, like, Okay, well that was good,
Speaker 1: let's push it a little bit further. Do you get
Speaker 1: conditioned to it? But then also you get attracted to
Speaker 1: it too.
Speaker 2: And that's the danger. You do get conditioned to it.
Speaker 2: I can see having covered the Arab spring in Libya
Speaker 2: and being on the front line and we had a
Speaker 2: wallplane drop a bomb near us and they shot the
Speaker 2: warplane down. And we're in Israel overlooking Gaza during the
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight war and a hill overlooking Gaza
Speaker 2: and a bomb I don't know if it was a
Speaker 2: mortar or a rocket landed on the hill beside us,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple hundred meters away. You know, common
Speaker 2: sense would tell you to take cover. We didn't because
Speaker 2: we were conditioned to it. I can see how some
Speaker 2: journals get addicted to this stuff because you know, your
Speaker 2: adrenaline is pumping and you walk away from it thinking, wow,
Speaker 2: that was thrilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny and I suppose a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't talk about it, but it's almost like getting that fix,
Speaker 1: that adrenaline that is, and you've got to check yourself,
Speaker 1: step away from it. And I suppose now you look
Speaker 1: back and go, hmm, maybe that wasn't the wisest thing
Speaker 1: to do, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're much smarter now, Gary, and they have experts,
Speaker 2: you know, security teams with these journalists now who are
Speaker 2: conditioned to know when you're pushing it too far. We
Speaker 2: didn't really have that, so we were kind of green,
Speaker 2: naive and that's dangerous and we push the limits. Luckily
Speaker 2: we got away with it, but you know, so many
Speaker 2: people don't get away with it. So many journals do
Speaker 2: pay the price for it. And it's not just being
Speaker 2: killed in a war. I mean things like a lot
Speaker 2: of journo's foreign correspondents get killed in car accidents. That's
Speaker 2: some of the most dangerous parts of the job. Because
Speaker 2: you're driving across the Sahara Desert a one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty meters an hour.
Speaker 1: You know, well, you even hear the military types talk
Speaker 1: about that. They can quite often the dangers getting to
Speaker 1: the location because of absolute the vehicles.
Speaker 2: You're traveling in so absolutely.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Port Arthur and that was in your
Speaker 1: early days. So when we talked the Port Arthur massacre,
Speaker 1: thirty five people murdered. Martin Bryant was the offender. You
Speaker 1: got called down a couple of days after the event,
Speaker 1: but quite strangely, you were actually at the what was
Speaker 1: it the Broad Arrow Cafe a couple of weeks before
Speaker 1: Martin Bryant went in there and killed twelve people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was with my then girlfriend and we'd been
Speaker 2: to Tasmania for the first time two weeks two weekends
Speaker 2: before the Port Arthur massacre happened, so we'd had lunch
Speaker 2: in the Broad Arrow Cafe. The memory of the ladies
Speaker 2: who were working in there was still very real to me,
Speaker 2: so when it happened, I could picture everything, really, the
Speaker 2: ticket booth on the way in the car park, where
Speaker 2: Martin Bryant chased so many people. So it was very
Speaker 2: real to me. And you're right, I wasn't the first
Speaker 2: wave of journalists to go down. I think I was
Speaker 2: twenty six, so I was still very young and green.
Speaker 2: But I got sent down two or three days later,
Speaker 2: and that's a story that really hit me very hard.
Speaker 2: I've covered a lot of stories massacres since, but that
Speaker 2: one was kind of personal to me because it was Australians.
Speaker 2: I kind of was able to distance myself a little
Speaker 2: bit in other massacres by saying, this is happening to
Speaker 2: another country. If that sounds callous, but the way I
Speaker 2: protected myself, but Port Arthur was very personal. And to
Speaker 2: be in Hobart at that time, you know, people were
Speaker 2: just they were destroyed. They were destroyed, and you know,
Speaker 2: if you didn't know somebody involved, you knew of somebody
Speaker 2: who knew somebody. It was a shocking crime. And you know,
Speaker 2: I ended up covering Martin Bryant pleading guilty in the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court and I sat probably I don't know five
Speaker 2: meters away from him as he laughed.
Speaker 1: Tell me about that, because it's quite chilling when the
Speaker 1: charges have been read out and he's asked to enter
Speaker 1: a plea and he was treating that as a comedy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I never forget the look of him, a big
Speaker 2: shock of curly blonde hair and these piercing, staring eyes
Speaker 2: like something out of a horror movie. It really was.
Speaker 2: And the prosecutor was going through the charges. You know,
Speaker 2: you have been charged with killing this person on this day,
Speaker 2: how do you plead? And he he pleaded guilty, but
Speaker 2: he seemed to find some amusement in the fact that
Speaker 2: it was repeated, you know, on this day again and
Speaker 2: again and started laughing hysterically. It was and you know,
Speaker 2: the poor family members that were in the court, and
Speaker 2: to the point that his lawyer ended up telling him
Speaker 2: to shut up. Basically, that was just pure evil, pure evil,
Speaker 2: pure madness.
Speaker 1: Upfront, what was he sentenced after convicted of those thirty
Speaker 1: five murders and all the other offenses.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to thirty five life sentences, So here
Speaker 2: he'll die in prison. Rotten.
Speaker 1: How I say, I'm with you. You said you're twenty
Speaker 1: six at the time, probably the biggest story you've been
Speaker 1: involved in. And did it change your view or did
Speaker 1: it is something shift in you after you were involved
Speaker 1: in a story like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, in that I think I think I carried it
Speaker 2: very heavily on myself. The impact that journalists can have
Speaker 2: when covering a story like that. Quickly a lot of
Speaker 2: the community anger turned against us. You know, we're being
Speaker 2: spat on in reads. And I understand and I've seen
Speaker 2: I have seen it since that people are looking to
Speaker 2: point their anger at somebody, and these journals are still
Speaker 2: there asking questions. I found that really confronting and conflicting,
Speaker 2: and you know, are we doing the right thing here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And again I've seen it another, you know, in other
Speaker 2: massacres in other places.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting conundrum, isn't it with the journalists Because
Speaker 1: I saw a lot when I was as a police
Speaker 1: officer in homicide, A lot of people, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: a journalist, would often make disparaging remarks about the media.
Speaker 1: Oh they're covering this and covering that. But it was
Speaker 1: ironic because when they didn't cover it, people would be winging, well,
Speaker 1: why don't they cover this crime? Because what no one's interested.
Speaker 1: There's a real difficulty in what the role is the
Speaker 1: media and an understanding of what the media is. But
Speaker 1: these things have to be reported. If they're not reported,
Speaker 1: they get swept under the carpet. What's your views on
Speaker 1: the morality of what you do with covering stories like that?
Speaker 2: Gary? I don't want to live in a world where
Speaker 2: something like Port Alpha can happen and then two three
Speaker 2: days later we all move on and forget about it.
Speaker 2: Something of that significance needs we need to remain focused
Speaker 2: on it. And I've seen it in America when they've
Speaker 2: had gun violence, shocking massacres, where they quickly move on
Speaker 2: and they don't learn the lessons. And it sounds cliche,
Speaker 2: but we are the first draft of history, and what
Speaker 2: we are reporting at the time often becomes historical we
Speaker 2: look back at it, and without that then it's not
Speaker 2: really you know, it doesn't become part of history. You're right.
Speaker 2: The worst thing in the world is something horrific happened
Speaker 2: and no one took any notice of it. I don't
Speaker 2: want to live in a world like that.
Speaker 1: No, I think it's an important role. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that now because I'm working in the media of journalism,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was bad. Things are more prone
Speaker 1: to happen when the spotlight's not put on them, and
Speaker 1: I honestly believe you need that transparency so people understand
Speaker 1: what's actually going on, and that evokes a reaction. The
Speaker 1: Port Arthur massacre, if we just sort of shut that down.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it was the media coverage that resulted
Speaker 1: in it, but the crackdown on firearms in Australia, that
Speaker 1: was public outrage that made the government, and full credit
Speaker 1: to John Howard on what he did bringing in the
Speaker 1: bands and the gun buyback scheme. I think there was
Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty thousand firearms turned in.
Speaker 2: Again, what we saw out of the result, there was
Speaker 2: some good to come out of something horrific. And again
Speaker 2: I keep seeing what's happened in America and continues to happen.
Speaker 2: They don't, they don't change course. There is never anything
Speaker 2: good to come out of something so bad, and it
Speaker 2: keeps happening and keeps repeating itself. I don't get it.
Speaker 2: Are we always perfect in the way we handle our
Speaker 2: coverage of massacres and people's grief. No, we're not. We're not.
Speaker 2: We're imperfect in that respect. But by continuing to stay
Speaker 2: focused on things that are important, we do put political
Speaker 2: pressure on people to make changes, like John Howard did,
Speaker 2: so there is perhaps a lesson learned or a change made.
Speaker 1: It's a fine line because you're dealing with people that
Speaker 1: are highly emotional understanding because of what's occurred. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of been a no win situation. But I try
Speaker 1: to look at it objectively, and I think that there's
Speaker 1: better good in spotlight being put on situations rather than
Speaker 1: just sweeping under carpet. You talked about America. Now, you
Speaker 1: were the US correspondent for Channel seven, and you might
Speaker 1: have forgotten the amount of mass shootings you attended. Can
Speaker 1: you just run us through some of them and the impact.
Speaker 1: I want to get your thoughts on what's the difference
Speaker 1: some of the things. Every time, not every time, but
Speaker 1: I hear of these mass shootings, I think, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is going to be what tips America into We're going
Speaker 1: to do something about it. But then you hear the
Speaker 1: powerful gun lobby and different things and just the mentality
Speaker 1: of what's over in America. First of all, tell me
Speaker 1: about some of the ones that you've covered and the
Speaker 1: ones that have impacted on the most in the US.
Speaker 2: I've covered so many, and writing the book, I'd forgotten
Speaker 2: about a lot of the ones that I had covered.
Speaker 2: The one that stuck with me was the school massacre
Speaker 2: of twenty six and seven year olds just outside of
Speaker 2: New York elementary school. Gunman went in and shot dead
Speaker 2: those children and I think eight adults as well, But
Speaker 2: they became so many. I mean the Charleston church massacre
Speaker 2: where the gunman prayed with the African American church goers
Speaker 2: for an hour before turning around and massacring in them,
Speaker 2: all except one to leave a message behind. I went
Speaker 2: to another at a college in America where the same
Speaker 2: number as Port Arthur which struck me, which was thirty
Speaker 2: five dead and kids were still going to school while
Speaker 2: in another part of the campus this guy was on
Speaker 2: a rampage killing people. Because authorities couldn't get the message out.
Speaker 2: It became commonplace, and it became this dreadful you know,
Speaker 2: the Orlando nightclub massacre. I'm sitting here thinking of them
Speaker 2: as they came, you know, the Las Vegas music festival.
Speaker 2: I covered Norway massacre in Oslo, again, a country that
Speaker 2: doesn't have great gun control. They just keep flooding back
Speaker 2: to me. It just kept happening and happening, happy, and
Speaker 2: we ended up having this awful kind of calculation about
Speaker 2: what is worth going to now, What is going to
Speaker 2: attract Australia's attention to these massacres. But they're coming so
Speaker 2: often that people go, there's just another massacre in America.
Speaker 2: That's where it got right.
Speaker 1: Okay, So from the news point of view, is it
Speaker 1: of interest?
Speaker 2: What's the number?
Speaker 1: Is it? Ten?
Speaker 2: Fifteen, twenty? I mean that's how And I got very
Speaker 2: angry about it because I could. I could having been
Speaker 2: in Port Arthur and seeing what John Howard did, and
Speaker 2: away from politics, seeing what John Howard did, and then
Speaker 2: seeing America being and then they'd be hashtag pray for you,
Speaker 2: pray for this city, or hashtag pray for Orlando, and
Speaker 2: then the politicians would get up and go, now's not
Speaker 2: the time to talk about gun control, Now is the
Speaker 2: time to well, they just forget about it and move
Speaker 2: on the next couple of couple of days and nothing
Speaker 2: would happen. You know. And the kid that died in
Speaker 2: the Sandy Hook school massacre I mentioned before, they were
Speaker 2: the same age as my son at the time, and
Speaker 2: it was a very affluent society. You're not dissimilar to
Speaker 2: where I was living in California, And to me, it
Speaker 2: was nowhere was safe. And if a country would allow
Speaker 2: twenty six and seven year olds to be killed in
Speaker 2: their school and not do anything about it, then what
Speaker 2: kind of country is it? Even you had the President
Speaker 2: of the United States, Barack Obama, come out and say
Speaker 2: we need to do something, but America's lover of guns
Speaker 2: is just so unexplainable and so addictive to them, and
Speaker 2: the gun lobby there just so powerful that any politician
Speaker 2: that tried to make significant change was voted out. I
Speaker 2: saw it after the cinema massacre in Colorado. Some Republican
Speaker 2: politicians tried to change the gun law and they got
Speaker 2: voted out.
Speaker 1: It's incomprehensible for someone that lived in a country like
Speaker 1: Australia to understand the logic behind it. There was one
Speaker 1: that you talked about, and I think it was a
Speaker 1: school where thousands of kids and the shooter in this
Speaker 1: particular one, he killed himself, but the person that sold
Speaker 1: him the gun was arguing, well, it wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: There was thirty three five hundred people that if they
Speaker 1: are armed, that wouldn't have happened. That was the logic.
Speaker 1: And I remember hearing headlines put the guns in schools
Speaker 1: and these things won't happen. Like I for all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, you look at these people and think they're sane,
Speaker 1: but how do they come across with that? And you
Speaker 1: touched on the gun lobby and they understand. Politicians sadly,
Speaker 1: are often driven about how they stay in power. They
Speaker 1: don't want to turn against them. But I would have
Speaker 1: thought something was done with some of those extreme ones,
Speaker 1: especially when you talked of the kindergarten one like ho
Speaker 1: that that touches everyone. We can't dismiss that these are
Speaker 1: kids six and seven year olds going the kindergarten and
Speaker 1: they're shot and killed.
Speaker 2: And I think most fair minded Americans would agree that
Speaker 2: you don't need weapons of war on the streets of America.
Speaker 2: You don't need an AR fifteen that belongs, that belongs
Speaker 2: in a war zone, that's not a hunting rifle. Their
Speaker 2: mindset towards weapons is different to ours. You're never going
Speaker 2: to get rid of weapons, like John Howard did. I
Speaker 2: think most fair minded Americans would agree with that. But
Speaker 2: the gun lobby, the NRA is powerful, even though their
Speaker 2: membership is no one knows their membership to be honest.
Speaker 2: It might be two million people, but two million people
Speaker 2: are holding a country of what three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: million at ransom. But this notion that if you the
Speaker 2: general public that's going to stop massacres, well it doesn't
Speaker 2: work because they keep happening, and there are more guns
Speaker 2: in America than anywhere else. And I used to say
Speaker 2: that I evenue of an instance where a massacre was
Speaker 2: stopped by somebody else who was There's since been a
Speaker 2: couple of those, but they're very rare.
Speaker 1: Very rare. Did you get the amount of times you
Speaker 1: were called to those type of massacres? Did you lose
Speaker 1: faith in humanity there? Like what happened to you there?
Speaker 1: Like reading it when you're afar on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world, it sort of sends a shockwave. But
Speaker 1: you're going there, You've seeing the grief of the families,
Speaker 1: You're seeing the pain of a community.
Speaker 2: I was angry, and you could probably tell by my response.
Speaker 2: I'm still angry about it. I mean, and you've got
Speaker 2: to remember, Gary, that I was. I was part of
Speaker 2: the community. I'm an American citizen, my wife's American, my
Speaker 2: son's American. So I felt became this became personal to
Speaker 2: me because this was a society that I was living
Speaker 2: in and part of that. I could see having seen
Speaker 2: again what happened out of Port Arthur, what could happen
Speaker 2: and what wasn't happening, and again and again, and it's
Speaker 2: still going on again and again. You know, communities being
Speaker 2: torn apart, and just the outright refusal to do anything
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Do you know, because you went the Oslo and that
Speaker 1: was the shooting at a festival seventy There was two attacks,
Speaker 1: but I think on the island where there was a
Speaker 1: festival seventy so people killed by the offender in this
Speaker 1: case had dressed up as a security guard or whatever
Speaker 1: had gone over there. Did you know this a difference
Speaker 1: in the way that nation responded as compared to America
Speaker 1: with these type of things, or is pretty much the same.
Speaker 2: I can't, in all honesty tell you the aftermath, the
Speaker 2: long term aftermath of what happened, but certainly the level
Speaker 2: of shock was greater because they had an experienced But
Speaker 2: I mean it was I think seventy odd people, young
Speaker 2: kids got killed. They were basically caught on an island
Speaker 2: by this government and had nowhere where to go. He'd
Speaker 2: also had detonated some explosive devices in downtown Oslo. The
Speaker 2: absolute devastation really shocked me because America, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a level of mourning that's natural. But America moved on
Speaker 2: very quickly. Oslo Norway didn't. I can't tell you with
Speaker 2: any certainty whether there is any gun reform out of that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you talked about interviewing American presidents and seeing
Speaker 1: the elections, you would have covered a few when you
Speaker 1: over there, just off the crime aspect, just to lighten
Speaker 1: it up a bit. What are the elections like? Are
Speaker 1: they as crazy as what we see over here?
Speaker 2: I love American politics. I fell in love very quickly.
Speaker 2: In fact, I left straight straight out of the Sydney Olympics,
Speaker 2: and I was in America about two weeks later, and
Speaker 2: it quickly dawned on me that there was a US
Speaker 2: election a couple of weeks away, and I may be
Speaker 2: in the excitement of the Olympics and going there, I
Speaker 2: hadn't really thought about it. And I said to my boss.
Speaker 2: I said, shit, mate, there's an election coming up in
Speaker 2: two weeks. I know nothing about US politics. He said,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it, mate, We'll be right. It'll be
Speaker 2: over in a couple of days. Well that was George
Speaker 2: Bush versus Gore. I don't know if you remember. That
Speaker 2: was the county that was the hanging chads. So you know,
Speaker 2: on the night and I'm sitting there Green having just
Speaker 2: arrived from Australia, thinking of this, I'll just need to
Speaker 2: get just need to fudge it through this night and
Speaker 2: I'll be all right. All of a sudden, Al Gore
Speaker 2: conceded and then took back his concession just as George
Speaker 2: Bush was about to deliver his victory speech. And they
Speaker 2: did the recount in Florida, and they had the hanging chads.
Speaker 2: You know, there's people with a cross eye. They're looking
Speaker 2: at the ballots and seeing whether it was punched through
Speaker 2: or not. And this so much for it only lasting
Speaker 2: a couple of days. I think it was decided by
Speaker 2: the US Supreme Court in December. Dragged on and on
Speaker 2: and on, but that was my initiation to US politics.
Speaker 2: And it's just so much theater in it, the pomp
Speaker 2: and ceremony and tradition, the conventions, the election night. I
Speaker 2: loved it. I still love it. I'm kind of horrified
Speaker 2: to see what's happening over there, to be honest. I
Speaker 2: was there for the first part of Donald Trump's first term.
Speaker 2: I covered five US elections, so I was there for
Speaker 2: both the Bush, both of Obama, and the first one
Speaker 2: of Trump. Yeah, I think we're in an interesting slash
Speaker 2: dangerous period of time in American politics, so it'll be
Speaker 2: interesting to see how we get out of it. But
Speaker 2: I love US politics.
Speaker 1: Well, it would be entertaining, and sometimes it goes on
Speaker 1: here and I'm thinking of it, is this a reality
Speaker 1: TV show? Or what am I watching? When Obama was elected,
Speaker 1: that was a significant moment. What was the feeling like
Speaker 1: in the country at that time.
Speaker 2: Well, he's one of his themes was hope. You could
Speaker 2: feel it. You could feel it was there was a
Speaker 2: period of great hope for America that were just coming
Speaker 2: out of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know,
Speaker 2: the shocking attacks of September eleventh. Americans were beaten down,
Speaker 2: and we remember the economy turned just as Obama came in.
Speaker 2: So he swept on this wave of love and hope,
Speaker 2: and you know, first African American to be elected. You know,
Speaker 2: it's great enthusiasm, and he's such a great speaker, such
Speaker 2: a great orator, it's hard not to get swept up
Speaker 2: in that, regardless of his politics. Now, it seems that
Speaker 2: politics has been taken over by hate and division, no
Speaker 2: matter what side you're on, you know, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of creeping in here as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no unity.
Speaker 2: You can't disagree with somebody, you know, if you don't
Speaker 2: have the same belief as me, you're a dickhead or
Speaker 2: a dumbass. That's not the way. We all have the
Speaker 2: right to have a different opinion. And name calling or worse,
Speaker 2: political violences, there's just no, there's no place for it.
Speaker 1: There's a real adversarial approach, yes, combative, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to serve anyone.
Speaker 2: Well, no, in America. What I loved about America because
Speaker 2: we always talk don't talk about politics, you know, religion.
Speaker 2: That's not the same. In America. You would have a
Speaker 2: debate like debating a football team, you know, and it
Speaker 2: would be generally well taken, but a dangerous conversation to have.
Speaker 1: Now, Hey, guys, it's Gary jubilin here. Want to get
Speaker 1: more out of I Catch Killers, then you should head
Speaker 1: over to our new video feed on Spotify where you
Speaker 1: can watch every episode of I Catch Killers. Just search
Speaker 1: for I Catch Killers video in your Spotify app and
Speaker 1: start watching.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: You're in New York for September eleventh, and yeah, that's
Speaker 1: life changing for everyone. That doesn't mean you have to
Speaker 1: be there at the time. Every on the world changed
Speaker 1: from that moment. You're actually in New York and I
Speaker 1: think you're about to leave, and the first Tower was
Speaker 1: hit by a plane talk us through the events of
Speaker 1: that Todd.
Speaker 2: We said, at the start, I accidentally found myself in
Speaker 2: major stories, and that was the biggest of them. I'd
Speaker 2: been there covering Leighton Hewitt had won the US Open
Speaker 2: tennis that weekend as a twenty year old. We are
Speaker 2: been following around it. To be honest, he was a
Speaker 2: little difficult to follow around. So he left and we
Speaker 2: all went out and celebrated that night. Next morning, I
Speaker 2: woke up, I was pretty dusty, and we're heading to
Speaker 2: the airport and this driver picked us up and he
Speaker 2: was Israeli and he thought we were tourists, and so
Speaker 2: he was giving us a tour as we were leaving,
Speaker 2: not the typical grumpy New York taxi driver. And he said,
Speaker 2: we're driving down and he said, that's the Israeli consulate,
Speaker 2: and there's always a police car there guarding it. And
Speaker 2: almost on que the police guard lit up its lights
Speaker 2: and tore off, and he goes, that's unusual. And the
Speaker 2: next left turn down into the one of the tunnels
Speaker 2: leading out of Manhattan, and we're in the traffic for
Speaker 2: a little while. Emerged at the other side and the
Speaker 2: world had changed almost immediately. You could see every emergency vehicle,
Speaker 2: fire brigade, ambulance, police card just pouring back into the
Speaker 2: tunnel going into Manhattan. And my phone started rattling off
Speaker 2: with messages. Remember we had flip phones, so they're pretty basic,
Speaker 2: and I was trying to go through them. Got a
Speaker 2: call and it was someone from the newsroom. It was
Speaker 2: late at night in Sydney. This plane is just hit
Speaker 2: the World Trades and I'm like, that can't be true.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful, blue sky, it was a beautiful day.
Speaker 2: Look through the taxi window and almost frame perfectly is
Speaker 2: the first tower on fire, big hole and it just
Speaker 2: been hit. I I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2: Our taxi driver started wailing and banging the wheel of
Speaker 2: the cut cab, saying, they've got us here, they've got
Speaker 2: us here, obviously referring to terrorism might come down. We
Speaker 2: need to go back the other way, and we were
Speaker 2: going to do a phone interview back to the Sydney studio,
Speaker 2: and I heard a cry in the studio come out
Speaker 2: and it was the moment the second plane had hit,
Speaker 2: and sure enough I could see it through the back
Speaker 2: of the taxi window. So we were trying to get
Speaker 2: back into Manhattan. They were closing all the bridges and tunnels,
Speaker 2: fearing that this was the start of something bigger, which
Speaker 2: it was. And we eventually got back through Harlem. If
Speaker 2: anyone knows, Manhattan's kind of the top northern part. So
Speaker 2: we had to drive all the way back. And as
Speaker 2: we and we were listening on the radio. We were
Speaker 2: listening to you know, there's a plane gone into the Pentagon,
Speaker 2: a plane gone down in Pennsylvania, another one going towards
Speaker 2: the White House. There was a car bomb exploded at
Speaker 2: the US Supreme Court. Some of it wasn't true, but
Speaker 2: too much of it was. But it was like I
Speaker 2: always say, it's like War of the World, you know,
Speaker 2: the radio show in the maintain. Yeah, and everyone thought
Speaker 2: it was true. Well, this this was like that, and
Speaker 2: you know, my head's spinning. I think I quickly forgot
Speaker 2: my hangover. We didn't. I didn't see the towels come down,
Speaker 2: but we got there just after they came down, and
Speaker 2: we're listening to it on the radio, and you could
Speaker 2: see people starting to emerge on the streets, just covered
Speaker 2: caked in gray dust, horrified, just just sheer terror on
Speaker 2: their face. Yeah, we went in and we spent three
Speaker 2: or four nights sleeping in the streets of Lower Manhattan
Speaker 2: because the police had cooded it off, so if you left,
Speaker 2: you weren't going to get back in. So we had
Speaker 2: to slept in a Cameron's car the first night, in
Speaker 2: the alcove of a building, the second on the floor
Speaker 2: of a satellite truck the third and yeah, the world
Speaker 2: had changed, and you know, I was my head was spinning.
Speaker 2: I was overwhelmed by it. I was at the scene,
Speaker 2: found myself boy friend Bendigo, at the scene of certainly
Speaker 2: the biggest story of my career and perhaps my lifetime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how like I would imagine the logistical side
Speaker 1: of even filing your stories must have been. You're saying
Speaker 1: you're sleeping on the floor of a van, and different things,
Speaker 1: the chaos that would u surrounded what went on.
Speaker 2: And again, primitive mobile phones. The mobile phone towers were
Speaker 2: on top of the World Trade centers, so mobile phones
Speaker 2: were not working. We had to rely upon satellite trucks
Speaker 2: to get our material out. The Americans would promise we'd
Speaker 2: sit next to a satellite truck hoping to get ten
Speaker 2: twenty minutes out of the airtime out of the satellite
Speaker 2: truck and we kept getting bumped because they were going
Speaker 2: wall to wall to wall to wall. These were the
Speaker 2: logistical challenges that we kept facing being able to talk
Speaker 2: to Sydney. I didn't even see the vision of the
Speaker 2: towels come down because I was in the street. We
Speaker 2: saw the firefighters emerge after the towers come down, just
Speaker 2: again caked in dust, and my phone for some reason
Speaker 2: came to life for a couple of minutes and he
Speaker 2: one of the firefighters said can I use it? I
Speaker 2: said sure, and I guess I was eavesdropping, but he
Speaker 2: phoned a loved one and started crying and said, you know,
Speaker 2: I've lost so many mates. I'm alive, but I've got
Speaker 2: so many friends and hung up and went back in.
Speaker 2: I mean, those guys were incredibly brave. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: think as a journalist, you go into journalism mode. You
Speaker 2: try to just kick into well, I've got to I've
Speaker 2: got to cover this. Yeah, I'm overwhelmed by it, scared
Speaker 2: even but I've got to do this. I've got to
Speaker 2: get this story. I've got to try to go live.
Speaker 2: We think we were the first Australian TV network to
Speaker 2: go live from the scene and one of the challenges,
Speaker 2: especially early on being a foreign correspondence, is the logistics.
Speaker 2: You know, food, cars, petrol, power. Covering the story is
Speaker 2: just part of the part of the challenge.
Speaker 1: It's interesting what you say there might that you go
Speaker 1: into journalists mode when it's happening. I understand that, and
Speaker 1: I think that's the way a lot of us got
Speaker 1: through homicide work. That you're a horrendous scene. But people
Speaker 1: would say, well, how did you feel when you're actually working.
Speaker 1: You don't have time to process how you feel. Like
Speaker 1: when your job at a crime scene was making sure
Speaker 1: we catch a person that's done this. So that was
Speaker 1: my focus, and I would imagine in your situation that
Speaker 1: would be very much the same. My job here is
Speaker 1: to cover this. That's what I'm focusing on, and you
Speaker 1: don't get time to sort of step away until you've
Speaker 1: finished your job. Did you did it hit you at
Speaker 1: some point in time? You said, four days you're on
Speaker 1: the ground. Did you ever have time to just reflect
Speaker 1: what you had seen and been involved in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were on the ground for three or four weeks,
Speaker 2: but camped in the streets for three or four days
Speaker 2: before we were able to get accommodation. Yeah, There was
Speaker 2: one point a few days in where people started coming
Speaker 2: up to us, and initially it was just a couple
Speaker 2: of people with a photo have you seen this person?
Speaker 2: And initially I'm like, why are you asking me? You know,
Speaker 2: and it kind of didn't dawn on me, It didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, what was going on. And then then it
Speaker 2: became a flood of people, dozens of people coming up
Speaker 2: to us with photos of loved ones. So just so
Speaker 2: desperate to find people, their loved ones who disappeared in
Speaker 2: the World Trade Center, that they'd come to journos you know,
Speaker 2: have you seen them? You know, I mean it was inconceivable,
Speaker 2: but to them, they were so desperate. And then I
Speaker 2: just kind of, you know, it kind of hit me, like, wow,
Speaker 2: these poor people have They've got nothing, They've just disappeared.
Speaker 2: They didn't pull anybody out of there. They had gurney's
Speaker 2: waiting at hospitals. And the other thing Gary that also
Speaker 2: hit me, and I still struggle with it when I
Speaker 2: see documentaries, is the chirping. The firefighters wore alarms, personal
Speaker 2: alarms so to help them be found in the case
Speaker 2: of something happening, and all through those first certainly the
Speaker 2: first night, maybe the first couple of nights, all you
Speaker 2: could hear was the chirping from the World Trade Center ruined.
Speaker 2: It was those personal fire alarm going off. They if
Speaker 2: they found anything, it wasn't. They weren't pulling out bodies,
Speaker 2: that was. You know, these just kept going off until
Speaker 2: the batteries ran out.
Speaker 1: Horrendous And it changed the world too, didn't It changed
Speaker 1: a lot about your world. You would have found yourself
Speaker 1: in different places because of that particular day.
Speaker 2: It dictated the next decade or more of what we did.
Speaker 2: You know, we went into two World War two wars,
Speaker 2: rather one of which you know, didn't finish until after
Speaker 2: I left the US. There were terrorist attacks that's kind
Speaker 2: of spawned out of it, even in Sydney. I went
Speaker 2: to cover them. In Paris and other parts of America.
Speaker 2: You know, I think people who perhaps not old enough
Speaker 2: to remember the differences. It was kind of one of
Speaker 2: those moments before nine to eleven and after nine eleven
Speaker 2: it's certainly changed, and even you know, predominantly in America
Speaker 2: they went into deep mourning.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it certainly must have had an impact when
Speaker 1: you see and at the time, and that's interesting you
Speaker 1: say that with all the reports. If you're under attack
Speaker 1: and you didn't know when it was going to end,
Speaker 1: reference war of the world, So I understand what you're
Speaker 1: saying there. It would have been a surreal situation.
Speaker 2: Well, they shut down the the air space really quickly,
Speaker 2: but a couple of times passenger planes flew over, obviously
Speaker 2: going being told they had to land again, and everyone's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just another one. Yeah. And and that
Speaker 2: first flight when I eventually I went down to Washington
Speaker 2: a few weeks after because George Bush made an addressed
Speaker 2: to Congress, and that flight home was a nerve wracking flight,
Speaker 2: you know, and all those security measures they brought in
Speaker 2: take you two hours to get through security in American airports. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it changed remarkably.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, these are some of the heavy things
Speaker 1: you've you've done. I'm going to lighten it up a
Speaker 1: little bit before we take a break for the part one.
Speaker 1: But why were you wrestling wild anacondas.
Speaker 2: Well? Ana Condas?
Speaker 1: I've seen the movie a documentary.
Speaker 2: Oh what happened? This thing had a head on it
Speaker 2: like this, Yeah, it was it was I think it
Speaker 2: was twenty feet long and thick. And so this was
Speaker 2: a guy that was picking up these anacondas and people's
Speaker 2: swimming pools. So it was in the Everglades. The story,
Speaker 2: the folk lore, and I don't know how true it
Speaker 2: was that a breeder had anacondas during one of the
Speaker 2: hurricanes in Florida and it hid his house, destroyed his
Speaker 2: collection of anacondas. They all escaped into the Everglades and
Speaker 2: they started breeding so big that they would they would
Speaker 2: eat the alligators, and it became started becoming a huge
Speaker 2: problem down there, probably still is. So I love the
Speaker 2: thought of going on air boats and seeing alligators and
Speaker 2: trying to fight. We didn't see one in the while,
Speaker 2: but we found this guy that was collecting it, and
Speaker 2: he encouraged us to pick this bloody thing up. A
Speaker 2: couple of times in my life that I was scared
Speaker 2: that was one of them. This thing would have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've handled snakes and I know how strong they feel,
Speaker 1: just the small snakes. So it's just pure muscle.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, it wrapped around my arm and they're like,
Speaker 2: oh my, you can get him off now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well see some of the amazing experiences did I I
Speaker 1: think it was in your book writing around the Pyramids
Speaker 1: at some stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was after we came back from Libya, so
Speaker 2: we'd had three weeks I think in Libya covering the
Speaker 2: war there, and it was after the uprising in Egypt,
Speaker 2: so there were no tourists there. OK, it was still
Speaker 2: very tense there. I know you've spoken Peter Grestor before,
Speaker 2: so and John and my camera and I maybe one
Speaker 2: of maybe half a dozen tourists, and we got we're
Speaker 2: able to get a camera ride around the the pyramids
Speaker 2: and virtually just us, which is unheard of because you
Speaker 2: go there now will be thousands and thousands and thousands
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: What an experience. These are the things that balance it out,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah? It is.
Speaker 2: We took some time sometimes we didn't always blow in
Speaker 2: and blow out. Sometimes you take a day just to
Speaker 2: enjoy where you're at. That was one of those times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, and I do. I've seen and I've been
Speaker 1: involved in the industry enough to see how hard you
Speaker 1: work when it's on. And I've been away with film crews,
Speaker 1: and I thought we pushed hard in the Cops, and
Speaker 1: we did, but I was always impressed by you know,
Speaker 1: you could be going for twenty hours, forget the meal.
Speaker 1: We've got to get this shot. We've got to do
Speaker 1: this so that you do do work when it's on.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean in case of you flying to Libya.
Speaker 2: We flew into Egypt, jumped in a car and drove
Speaker 2: straight into Libya. We were asleep because we're still jet lagged.
Speaker 2: And you just go twenty hours our days, doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: You get the job done.
Speaker 1: Well, let's have a break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about There's one that you work
Speaker 1: very closely on and it was covered over here, but
Speaker 1: that was the senseless murder of Chris Lane, the young
Speaker 1: aussy guy that was over there on a baseball scholarship.
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of that and what you
Speaker 1: saw in there, David Hicks in Guadamart Bay. I think
Speaker 1: that's interesting that you've been there and so a whole
Speaker 1: range of things. And I'm sure I've got a couple
Speaker 1: of other little things I might pull out here and
Speaker 1: I can have a chat. But let's let's do that
Speaker 1: in part two.
Speaker 2: Cheers, Cheers,