Elite athletes like Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and tennis champion Naomi Osaka broke the norms when it came to elite athletes talking about their mental health this year. Osaka withdrew from the French Open and Biles from several Olympic gymnastic events, both citing mental distress. The decisions created international social media uproars, and they were flooded with both support and condemnation – a reaction that highlights key stresses for elite athletes. Research by the

Sometimes it’s the small stories that make a difference. The Age’s social affairs editor, Jewel Topsfield, says it’s important for journalism hopefuls to take the time to gain a meaningful understanding of the issues they want to write about. Where did your passion for journalism come from? Since I was young, I have loved reading, English and writing. In year 10, I did work experience at a local suburban newspaper called Messenger Newspapers in Adelaide, and it was an inc

* Minor spoilers ahead* Squid Game is one of the most talked-about shows at the moment. It’s cultivated an army of stans, sparked discussions about fan theories and spawned so many memes. According to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, it’s the most popular show on the platform, no small feat for a non-English language program. For all the excitement surrounding the show, Squid Game emphatically delivers. @alistairfawcus If Squidgame was set in Australia 🇦🇺 😂😅 #squidgame

“Be curious,” is journalist Peter Hannam’s advice to the next generation of reporters. Hannam spent eight years covering the environment for The Sydney Morning Herald , before moving to The Guardian this month. You’ve had lots of experience in Australia and overseas, how has your career developed over the years? It’s a long path. I do environment reporting now, but I’ve only been doing that about eight years. I started in ABC radio … that would have been in like 1989.

*This is a spoiler-free review* After many delays thanks to COVID-19, Free Guy has finally been released, with Mariah Carey’s hit song Fantasy playing a surprisingly big part in it. Free Guy caught my imagination, taking me from my living room into such a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby … The film revolves around Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a non-playable character in the videogame Free City . Guy has grown tired of his life as a bank teller, unaware he is just programming in a videog

Jon Chey is humble about his capabilities and achievements to the point of self-effacement. Yet with a history behind the helm of legendary studios Irrational Games and 2K Australia, and a gaming resume replete with iconic, ground-breaking titles as System Shock 2 and BioShock , Chey’s body of work does all the talking for him. “Jon is a very clever [game] designer … he’s very efficient in a way that I’ll never be,” says Ken Levine, co-founder of Irrational Games and the cre

Alice Clarke, an award-winning freelance games journalist, copywriter and a regular columnist for The Age , had an unconventional start to her career in the industry. She says one of the best pieces of advice she was given in her career came from her mentor, and is a philosophy she still lives by. “Every day the clock resets to zero in journalism. It doesn’t matter how good you were yesterday, it doesn’t matter how much you sucked yesterday. All that matters is what you produ

The Tipping Point showcases a band assessing its twilight era with a sense of humility and maturity, highlighting Tears For Fears’ ability to propagate their nostalgic ’80s-era sound with an injection of melancholic electronica. It pares back the excess of their affiliated era while retaining a ponderous groove of pulsating machinery and multi-layered keyboard textures. The Tipping Point is Tears For Fears’ first single release in anticipation of their upcoming album of th

“As long as I’ve got my phone and my computer and a decent signal, I should be able to get anything done. That’s the mindset I’ve kept throughout all this – you’ve just got to keep working and keep finding a way to get things done and make things happen.” Age sports reporter Roy Ward says it’s important to take every opportunity to build experience and become a better reporter. How did you get into journalism? “Well, I always wanted to be a journalist, but I wasn’t smart en

By Nadia Alaoui How did you get started as a journalist? Going through school, I quickly realised that I was never going to be a...

Jordan Acker dreams of one day having the talent he manages at the top level of music. “In sport it would be like seeing your athlete win the championship. For us, we want to see our artists headlining Coachella,” he says. Speaking over Zoom, Jordan had just finished a shift for his day job as a Customer Experience Agent for footwear retailer Accent Group Limited, and will spend the few hours before bed doing work for the business he co-founded, Ivy Music Group. Ivy Music Gro

Developing local connections and saying yes to opportunities are keys to success for former Swinburne journalism student Brooke Grebert-Craig, now working at the Bass Coast News. “It got to a point where I was so desperate to be a journalist – I needed to take a chance and move down, even if it meant leaving family and friends,” she says. Did you always want to be a journalist? I always wanted to be a journalist, I think, in year 10 is when I really started to think about i