If you’re anything like me, you start your morning the same way: curse at the alarm, reluctantly make the bed, fire up the coffee machine and pop in your headphones to listen to Please Explain.

And it’s not because I’m paid to do that; Please Explain has grown an impressive and loyal audience since it was launched by the then-national editor Tory Maguire in 2018. What started as a weekly insight into the news – mostly federal politics – from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (then ran daily during the COVID-19 outbreak) has evolved into Australia’s best daily podcast.

That evolution continues today as we unveil a new name: The Morning Edition.

The Morning Edition may be a new name; we think it better describes what we do. But the DNA remains – the story behind the story with the finest journalists in the country.

Our podcast has been through some exciting changes in the past year or so. We have our first ever full-time host, the dynamic Samantha Selinger-Morris. The podcast now drops in your feed at 5am each day. And we have two regular episodes: Peter Hartcher every Thursday, dissecting the biggest issues at home and abroad, while on Friday Jacqueline Maley and David Crowe take you behind the biggest stories in Canberra.

You can also expect to hear Sam in conversation with Kate McClymont on exposing Australia’s biggest scandals and fraudsters, the latest blockbuster investigation from Nick McKenzie, or Ross Gittins explaining economics to ordinary people like me.

“I have a burning desire to understand what’s going on, and here I get to speak to some of the finest – and most experienced – minds in the business,” Selinger-Morris said.

“What a joy and relief it is when they help me, and by extension our listeners, to understand the swirling political, environmental, and often criminal forces that surround us.”