North East Regional Extra, Wednesday, October 1, 2025 - Page 1
nemedia.com.au
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INCE the advents of rolling news coverage and social media, smartphone footage and eyewitness accounts have made it easier than ever to experience major events as they occur and probably think that we understand what has unfolded. But the news cycle – and the nation’s attention – moves on swiftly. This moving ABC series slows down the headlines to revisit key moments in recent history, as told by those who actually lived them, providing viewers with a new perspective on the past, and challenging what we might think we know. From watching a plane hit the World Trade Center from the 92nd floor of the South Tower on September 11, 2001, to being at Canberra’s Government House on November 11, 1975, the day of the Dismissal, these are incredible first-person accounts of life-changing days. Later episodes focus on 2005’s racially charged Cronulla riots, the Fairlie Arrow kidnapping hoax of 1991 and the Sydney to Hobart yacht race tragedy that transpired in 1998. Tuesday’s return is a heart-wrenching retelling of the February, 7, 2009, Black Saturday bushfires, with survivors, first responders and community members generously sharing their personal stories from a dark day that then Victorian Premier John Brumby described as “the worst ever in the history of the state.” Sixteen years on, the townships of Marysville, Kinglake and Kinglake West are still recovering from the events of the day. “It was just really surreal,” recalls Kinglake restaurateur Isabella Laudisio (pictured), whose father was among the 173 who lost their lives. “It’s like, can it possibly be happening in just one normal day?”
I WAS ACTUALLY THERE
ABC TV, Tuesday, 8pm
INSIDE STORY