John Lyons, ABC’s Americas editor, asked President Trump a question about his business dealings while in office. That’s it. That’s the whole story. He didn’t hurl a shoe, didn’t set fire to the Oval Office, didn’t even raise his voice. He asked a perfectly legitimate question – which is literally the job description for a journalist.
But you wouldn’t know it from the reaction here at home. The usual suspects in the right-wing media have been fainting into their Sky After Dark studio mugs, clutching pearls so tightly they’re leaving marks. You’d think Lyons had personally insulted the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Sky News commentators have even suggested cutting the ABC’s funding over this supposed act of journalistic terrorism. Yes, apparently the gravest threat to Australia–US relations isn’t nuclear war or trade disputes – it’s a single, calm question from a guy with a notebook.
This is the ecosystem we now live in: ask a tough question, and you’re “hurting Australia.” Expect accountability from a president, and you’re a “leftist activist.” It’s as though the right has forgotten that the press isn’t there to hand out hugs – it’s there to ask questions powerful people don’t want to answer.
If anything, Lyons’ question should be celebrated. The man did what too many U.S. journalists have stopped doing: he confronted power to its face. That’s not anti-American. That’s the most democratic thing you can do.
So, to the commentators hyperventilating about this grave diplomatic crisis: get over it. The ABC’s job is not to keep Donald Trump happy. It’s to inform Australians – even if that means ruffling a few MAGA feathers.
And if a single, measured question is enough to “damage relations with the U.S.,” maybe the relationship wasn’t all that strong to begin with.
Also by Roswell:
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It is impossible to believe that USA voters in enough numbers would vote in a MORON as president, twice. The gutless, brainless, heartless barely civilised sadarses did it and the world has learned to HATE this as surely as post-1945 survivors of Adolf and Benito hated what had threatened us all. Fascist filth has us hating the oppression, the lying, cheating, the fixated fartskulled felons of filthy festering frauding. Trump, surrounded by enlisted lying perverted mercenary turdy trash and tripe, is an insecure, insane, insensitive idiot, swollen up.
These people want to destroy ABC and good journalism.
Sharri Markson, Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt, Rita Panahi, Piers Akerman, Alan Jones, Rowan Dean, Chris Kenny, Greg Sheridan — they are your ‘hate media’.
Their hate is now irrelevant. No one with any brains is listening to their propaganda and diatribes.
John Lyons is an experienced professional journalist something the rabble at SKY after Dark would not understand.
His CV is quite impressive:
Lyons was editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, executive producer of the Sunday program on the Nine Network, and a foreign correspondent in the United States and Israel.
He was associate editor (digital) and a senior reporter at The Australian, before being appointed executive editor of ABC News and head of investigative journalism for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2017.
On 5 June 2019 Lyons live-tweeted when the Australian Federal Police raided the Sydney office of the ABC, the day after their raid on the home of Annika Smethurst. He reported that they had downloaded 9214 documents which then had to be assessed in terms of the warrant issued.
Lyons became Americas Editor at the ABC in March 2025, after having been its Global Affairs Editor.
When Lyons was first appointed to the ABC I was worried that his former commercial media links were part of what I still see as the creeping commercialisation of the ABC. I am happy to say my fears have been proven wrong. I consider Lyons a significant addition to the ABC’s reporting armoury. Others in the organisation today could learn from him. In similar vein I am pleased to see the ABC’s middle-East reporters are finally using the G word in reporting the butcher Netanyahu and the Israeli Death Forces push into Gaza.
Compare someone like John Lyons to the creatures mentioned by Ian Joyner.
Terry Mills, a useful comment.
On detested social media, one figure has been unashamed to speak his mind on Gaza.