What is Rainbow Briefing
Rainbow Briefing is a daily LGBTQIA+ news podcast for Australian audiences. Five minutes. Monday to Friday. The queer news that matters, delivered in the time it takes to make your morning coffee.
Rainbow Briefing exists to keep you informed and connected — a quick daily catchup so you know what’s happening in and around our community.
Who’s Making This
Louise Poole is the host and producer of Rainbow Briefing.
She’s a queer audio producer and presenter with over 25 years of experience in live radio, community broadcasting, and media. She’s worked across production, presenting, interviewing, and content strategy — and spent her career learning how to tell stories that matter to the communities they’re about.
Connection is at the heart of everything she does. She creates spaces where people — particularly queer people — get to be seen, celebrated, and reflected back to themselves. Rainbow Briefing exists because LGBTQIA+ people deserve to start their day knowing their community matters. She refuses the narrative that queer news must be only trauma and adversity. She holds space for the hard stories AND the wins, the celebrations, the culture, the art, the full spectrum of queer life. Because representation matters in the everyday, not just the dramatic.
She started Rainbow Briefing because she went looking for a short-form daily queer news podcast for Australian audiences and realised there wasn’t one. So she made one.
Rainbow Briefing is independent queer media, produced on Yugambeh and Yuggera land through Welcome Change Media.
What We’re Not
Rainbow Briefing doesn’t try to cover everything. It’s not a replacement for dedicated LGBTQIA+ news outlets doing vital original reporting. We summarise, we signpost, we keep you connected to the news cycle.
If we do our job well, you’ll be more informed and more likely to seek out the fuller picture from the outlets doing the ground-level work.
Support queer media. LGBTQIA+ journalism is chronically underfunded. If Rainbow Briefing gets you interested in a story, consider supporting the outlet that broke it. A healthy queer media ecosystem needs more than one voice.
Where We Stand
Rainbow Briefing is advocacy journalism. We report from a stated values position:
LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights. This is not up for debate.
When we say LGBTQIA+, we mean all of us. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and every identity under our rainbow.
Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are who they say they are.
This is not a space for exclusionary voices. There is no “LGB without the T” here. There is no debate about whether trans people belong. They do.
We reject the “both sides” framework when one side is arguing against the existence, dignity, or rights of LGBTQIA+ people. We don’t platform bigotry for balance. We don’t treat our community’s lives as a matter for debate.
This isn’t bias. This is clarity.
Rainbow Briefing isn’t partisan — we don’t advocate for political parties. The advocacy stance comes from the personal values of its creator, not political alignment. We can and will report critically on any party. We acknowledge complexity and disagreement within our community. And we correct mistakes promptly when we make them.
Values-based advocacy journalism = having a clear ethical stance that LGBTQIA+ rights aren’t up for debate.
How We Approach Stories
Australian first. Rainbow Briefing prioritises stories that matter to LGBTQIA+ Australians. International news makes it in when there’s clear relevance here.
All of Australia. Not just Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. We consciously work against the eastern seaboard bias in Australian media. If anything, stories from underrepresented states and regions get extra consideration.
Power, not trauma. We lead with what our community is doing, not just what is done to us. When reporting discrimination or harm, we include community response and resistance. We celebrate wins, not just fights.
No sensationalism. We don’t use trauma as clickbait. We don’t amplify hate just because it’s trending. We inform rather than inflame.
Balance matters. Every bulletin aims for a mix — hard news and joy, challenges and wins. Our audience deserves to feel informed and connected, not just battered.
Privacy
We don’t out people. Ever.
We don’t speculate about whether public figures are LGBTQIA+. If someone isn’t publicly out, they’re not out — regardless of how “known” it might be in certain circles.
Coming out is a personal decision with real consequences. We never make that decision for someone else.
AI Transparency
Rainbow Briefing uses AI (currently Claude) as a production tool. Here’s how.
What AI is used for:
- Consolidating news from multiple sources
- Drafting scripts based on research
- Helping maintain editorial consistency
- Administrative support
What AI is not:
- The voice you hear is Louise. Real person, real voice.
- AI does not make editorial decisions — all content goes through Louise’s judgment
- AI does not replace human verification — facts are checked, sources are confirmed
On images and graphics:
- Graphics are made by a human
- AI may occasionally be used to generate a design element (like a rainbow ribbon) — but these are ingredients, not finished products
- We do not use AI to generate images of people
- We will never use AI to create or reproduce likenesses of real people
The workflow: AI helps draft. Louise reviews, edits, rewrites, makes all final decisions, records with her own voice, and produces the audio. The ethical principles, editorial judgment, and voice remain human.
Why we’re transparent: AI use in media is a live conversation. We don’t hide our process. Using AI lets one person produce daily content that would otherwise require a team — but the human remains at the centre of the work.
Acknowledgment of Country
Rainbow Briefing is produced and recorded on Yugambeh and Yuggera land. Sovereignty was never ceded. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which this podcast is made and the lands on which it is heard across Australia. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations LGBTQIA+ people, including Sistergirls and Brotherboys.
When reporting on stories involving First Nations people and communities, First Nations voices lead. We follow the lead of First Nations community and organisations on how stories should be told. We don’t speak for First Nations communities.
Accessibility
Rainbow Briefing is made by one person with limited resources. We’re doing our best.
What we’re committed to:
- Posting transcripts on the website so content is accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing community members
- Making the website as accessible as we can
- Being open to feedback about how we can do better
What we acknowledge:
- Rainbow Briefing doesn’t currently have capacity for Auslan interpretation, audio description, or other accessibility features
- This may change as the project grows
- If accessibility is a barrier for you and there’s something we can reasonably do, please tell us
Community Submissions
We welcome community news — especially from smaller organisations, regional groups, and community members who don’t have media departments.
Submit via the form on this site.
What to include:
- Who, what, when, where
- Why it matters to our community
- Contact details if we need a quick clarification
- Links to any existing coverage or resources
What we’re looking for:
- Community milestones and firsts
- Local events with broader significance
- Regional and rural stories that don’t get metro coverage
- Grassroots campaigns and community responses
- Corrections or context on stories we’ve covered
The more complete your submission, the more likely we can use it.
How to Support
Listen and subscribe. The simplest support. Subscribe on your podcast app. Leave a review. The numbers matter.
Share. Tell people about us. Share episodes. Word of mouth is how community media grows.
Submit stories. Got news? Use the form. Community stories are the heart of what we do.
Give feedback. Tell us what’s working. Tell us what’s not. We want to hear from you.
Contact
Got a story? Use the submission form. It gets checked before each bulletin is written — emails and messages don’t.
Something else? Send us a DM via Messenger.
Rainbow Briefing is produced by Louise Poole through Welcome Change Media.