The Truth Hurts

Susan Forde is Director of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, and Professor of Journalism at Griffith University, Brisbane. She works in the fields of alternative and independent media and recently carried out a Visiting Scholar’s appointment at New York University to investigate public trust, transparency and the media. She is the author of Challenging the News: The Journalism of Alternative and Community Media (Palgrave Macmillan); and co-author of Developing Dialogues: Indigenous and Ethnic Community Broadcasting in Australia (Intellect). Her newest work, Journalism for Climate Crisis: Public Engagement, Media Alternatives co-authored with colleagues from Griffith University and Simon Fraser University (Canada) was published by Routledge in early 2017. It offers different models for journalism that might mobilise the public and enable the media to better report climate crisis. She worked as a journalist in the independent and alternative media before joining academia.

Andrew Boe is a barrister with chambers in Sydney and Brisbane. His legal work has taken him to courtrooms across the Australian continent over a thirty-year career.

His past cases have covered a wide spectrum. He has been retained by the most powerful and wealthy and has also represented the poor, homeless and vulnerable. He has represented a serial killer (Ivan Milat), vulnerable Indigenous people and communities (including Palm Island, Minjerribah and Yuendumu), members of outlaw motorcycle clubs and of the political class (for example, One Nation proponent David Ettridge, Indigenous MP Billy Gordon and self-proclaimed billionaire Clive Palmer), women who have been battered by their partners, men who have done the battering, as well as ordinary people drawn into the Australian criminal justice system.

Andrew has written widely about criminal and social justice matters. The issues he was involved in concerning Palm Island are the subject of Chloe Hooper's THE TALL MAN and the SBS television documentary with the same title. His experience of Australian law is a unique one, but the issues he speaks of are necessary reading for all Australians.

Andrew was born in Burma and arrived in Australia with his parents and four brothers in the late sixties as political refugees. He has six children. THE TRUTH HURTS is his debut literary work.