The Reporter: True Stories
Gary Adshead’s 40-year journalism career has been spent pursuing the truth, no matter how ugly, dangerous – or ridiculous. From crooks and crimes to state secrets and heroic rescues, we take you behind the headlines.
Heads you keep the story, tails you lose: Reporting the Tony Bullimore rescue
“There’s something in the water,” I pointed and yelled from the deck of the warship. “There. He’s alive. There. It’s him.” But it still wasn’t my story to tell.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: Bullimore and the coin toss
This week on The Reporter podcast, Michael Thomson and Gary Adshead discuss the extraordinary rescue of missing round-the-world yachtsman Tony Bullimore.
From racing to Rottnest: Piecing together the full story of Perth’s severed head
A gifted child and a charming man, Stephen Cookson could have had it all. Instead, he sank deep into the underworld, where one day he got everything he deserved.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: The Head in the Bag
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson how an ordinary walk with the dog led to a tip-off about the identity of a dismembered body.
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Off the record or else: A Perth journo, a Como hotel and a story too big to publish
Few people knew where Gary Adshead was going that night. To a hotel in which he would hear the most remarkable story of his career – but one he couldn’t report.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: the story of T3
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson how he scored a clandestine interview with a secret operative working to sting corrupt police.
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Inside story: How a bikie debt collector brought down a Perth pillar of parliament
Small town, big connections: How a speed junkie was running Perth’s parliament, how one man brought him down, and how this reporter was finally unleashed.
- by Gary Adshead
This fugitive con artist fooled health departments across Australia. Until the day her phone rang
The true story of how a journalist pursued this prestigious executive’s true identity, building a damning dossier that brought her house of cards crashing down.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: When the whistleblower turned out to be the fugitive
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson a story of deception that would better suit a Hollywood movie than a WA health service.
Tow trucks and death threats: The Perth industry that spun out of control
Perth’s unregulated tow truck industry was a hotbed of corruption and violence. And when one reporter exposed its underbelly, detectives told him to leave town.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: Tow Trucks and Death Threats
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson the inside story of an industry that spun out of control.
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Finding Bogucki: The fallout, the stuff-ups and a tinderbox of tension
Behind the scenes of the extraordinary rescue of Robert Bogucki in the Australian desert, and how those sent to observe found themselves playing a leading role.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: Finding Bogucki
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson the inside story of the extraordinary rescue of Robert Bogucki in the Australian desert.
The truth is out there – at a spy base 400 kilometres north of Perth
The source was prepared to grant me 10 questions about the Kojarena base. I was to prepare them carefully – there would only be one chance to get them answered.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: Spy Base Echelon
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson the story of one of the most secret spy bases in the world.
The photo and the phone call: How a tip-off toppled master manipulator Barry Urban
This reporter was told he had a “bum steer”, “not really a story”. Undaunted, he launched an investigation that would finally land its subject in jail.
- by Gary Adshead
The Reporter podcast: Unmasking Barry Urban
This week on The Reporter podcast, Gary Adshead tells Michael Thomson how he launched an investigation that would finally land its subject in jail.
Stolen valour, stolen skills: Revealing the depth of MP Barry Urban’s betrayal
Reporter Gary Adshead was methodically exposing the Perth MP’s multiple lies over faked war medals when a chance conversation led him even deeper into the mystery.
- by Gary Adshead