The Newsreader

We meet Dale, Helen, and the rest of the News at Six team on perhaps the most critical night sinceDale ascended to the desk— election night 1987. Hawke versus Howard. Dale and Helen are going tojointly co-host the election night coverage— almost six hours, unbroken, on air.

The News At Six, and indeed the country, is rocked by a shocking, unprecedented event— a massshooting in Clifton Hill. A huge and consequential story, it activates everything that compels Helenabout the job. She wants to be first to cover the event from every angle— the details, the time line,the gun-rights debate, the motivations of the shooter. But when she races to air with confrontingearly...

A global crisis is escalating— the stock market is in freefall. Parallel to that, Helen is plunged intopersonal free-fall when the office is contacted by a gossip columnist, who is planning to print anexpose about Helen’s troubled past— her teenage institutionalisation, and her subsequentestrangement from her family.

The hype is building for 1988 Bicentennial. As the News At Six shoots an elaborate, patriotic ad,Geoff hosts a telethon supporting the first fleet re-enactment. When Geoff's coverage is interruptedby a striking protest, it thrusts Aboriginal activist Lynus Preston into the spotlight.

With the Christmas season in full swing, the News At Six is approached by Geoff and Evelyn Walters’daughter Kay who offers to sell her story of her addiction to heroin. Lindsay sees an opportunity toclose out the year with a show-stopper, and instructs them to get it at all costs.

It’s the biggest television event of the year, possibly the decade— Australia Day 1988, featuring a fullre-enactment of the first fleet sailing into Sydney Harbour, ceremonies with Prince Charles andPrincess Diana... and one of the biggest protests ever seen in Australia.