TRUMPED! Surviving Trump’s America

TRUMPED! Surviving Trump’s America

She was there when Trump came to power - and she got TRUMPED!

Join us for a fascinating and lively conversation with award-winning Australian journalist Ginny Stein, former managing editor for South East Asia at the Washington headquarters of Radio Free Asia.

A long time foreign correspondent for ABC and SBS, she has reported from more than 30 countries. And for five years she was based in Vanuatu. She’s now Professor of Journalism at University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

Ginny takes us behind the headlines to share what it was really like reporting from America during the Trump era - navigating politics, power, press freedom and survival in one of the world’s most challenging media environments.

Expect an engaging, revealing and entertaining conversation with one of Australia’s experienced journalists, with plenty of stories you won’t hear in the headlines.

EVENT DETAILS

📅 Saturday 17 October 2026

⏰ 9am-11am

📍 Spinal Life Healthy Living Centre

2-4 Smith St, Cairns North (beside Guyala Cafe)

☕ Coffee/tea and morning tea provided

🎟️ Tickets: $35

(Ticket includes a Guyala coffee/tea voucher)

Come along, hear the stories and discover how Ginny was TRUMPED!

Book your ticket - this is one conversation you won’t want to miss.

For three years she worked alongside some of the most committed journalists on the planet, working to put local news back into countries without free media. 

As a senior managing editor at Radio Free Asia, she managed undercover teams inside Myanmar and Cambodia and teams of others covering Laos and Vietnam from outside the country.

Funded by the US government with bi-partisan support Radio Free Asia was an information lifeline.

But that all came crashing down shortly after Donald Trump was re-elected. A Saturday morning email announcing that funding as of that moment would now end. 

Hundreds of contracts were almost immediately let go, followed by hundreds of staff. 
The fight to survive had just begun.

For three decades Ginny Stein worked across both the ABC and SBS as a foreign correspondent. 

First posted to Thailand as Southeast Asia correspondent, she covered the overthrow of Indonesia’s President Suharto and the destruction and birth of East Timor. For almost a decade she worked as a video journalist for SBS Dateline winning three Walkley awards for stories she filmed in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Myanmar.  She returned to the ABC in 2010 to take on the role of Africa correspondent.

During her time at RFA, she and her teams won two prestigious Edward R Murrow awards for Digital excellence for their coverage of the war on our doorstep in Myanmar. 

In March this year, she was appointed Professor of Journalism at the University of Technology in Sydney.

Read more about Ginny here.