As some of you might know, I've spent the past couple of years on a research project that's all about curiosity. And now it's time to put the metaphorical pen to paper as I head off to an AirBnB for a self-imposed writing retreat and get underway with the manuscript.
In my research, I've interviewed a lot of people, including some of the most genuinely curious minds that I've ever come across. Like, people who've asked uncomfortable questions and made the world better for it.
But it has also included people with very different world views from my own. And that was intentional. Because the whole point was to try and understand their perspective, not to agree, and withhold judgement in the process.
Naturally, I was drawn into the recent story that made front page news about Karl Stefanovic. In case you missed it, Stefanovic published a podcast interview with British far-right figure Tommy Robinson in late June. The episode disappeared from YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts within a day. But the damage had been done. Stefanovic, the highest paid personality on Australian TV, was axed by Nine shortly after.
Stefanovic (and his supporters) came out saying that he was making a stand for free speech, and that in a democracy, people deserve to hear different perspectives and make up their own minds.
What's been playing on my mind though isn't whether Nine made the right call. But it's about the dark side of curiosity, and where the line sits.
Two sides, both with a point
The reactions I've heard fall pretty neatly into two camps.
One side says the media simply shouldn't give a platform to extreme perspectives. That access equals amplification, and amplification is an implied endorsement regardless of the intent.
The other side says that's exactly the wrong lesson and that good journalism has always been about talking to people you disagree with. That being said, the obligation is to be impartial, to get both sides, and to ask the hard questions in the public interest. Which is why critics of the Stefanovic interview have called out that giving Robinson a platform was one thing, but more than that, it was that Stefanovic didn't push back. He laughed along. He told Robinson he "couldn't believe he was alive." And when I've asked people their views on this, they've said that's not journalism. That's a fan interview.
When curiosity becomes something else
Curiosity, on its own, isn't a moral compass. It's an engine. And what matters most, is what's steering it.
The Stefanovic situation is one version of that. But the pattern shows up everywhere. Like, an athlete who is so driven to understand what the human body can do that they end up experimenting with substances that cost them their career. Or a scientist so absorbed in what's possible that the question of what's responsible barely registers. Or even a journalist so committed to understanding an extremist movement that they slowly become more sympathetic to it than they intended.
We've spent the last decade treating curiosity and open-mindedness as inherently good things, the antidote to tribalism, groupthink, and closed minds. And largely, that's right. But curiosity without any sense of consequence isn't open-mindedness. It's just appetite.
What comes next
The Stefanovic story won't be the last of its kind. The shift toward independent platforms means more people are making editorial calls that used to sit with newsrooms, legal teams, and editors. The Australian Digital News Report found that 43% of Australians now get news from creators and influencers rather than traditional outlets. That's a lot of individuals deciding, on their own, where the line is.
Democracies have always held the quiet understanding that some ideas, while legal to express, don't deserve a stage. Where that line sits has never been fixed. It moves with culture, with history, with how confident or fragile a society feels at any given moment. And right now it's being tested, and most of us haven't quite decided where we think it should be.
I don't have a clean answer myself. But I'm becoming convinced that it isn't necessarily how curious you are. It's what you're curious about.