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Reflections on The Conversation’s 10th anniversary: The story of how it came about
Ten years ago this month (March 25) The Conversation launched to a bemused and sceptical audience.
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It’s always so appealing to start an article for an academic audience with a ridiculous “quote” that perpetuates a cliched perspective of their capabilities.
Unable to meet a deadline? What about all the deadlines for marking, examinations, research applications, and publications that academics meet every day?
Unable to write? Were all those qualifications obtained by presenting work through the medium of interpretive dance?
It might have been more interesting and relevant to ponder how The Conversation, which started with an excellent ‘value proposition’ more frequently now relegates ‘academic’ stories to a secondary position behind stories which merely repeat and echo stories trending in the mainstream media. Shaped by the normative values of mainstream journalism the danger is that the original intention is subsumed by a focus on national politics and opinion pieces based on the author’s status rather than expertise.
But hey, what would I know? I’m just an academic.
I think you ought to read the whole piece and then rethink your comment Collette, because it’s an absolute misrepresentation of what Andrew wrote. Full disclosure: I work for The Conversation UK and if you look properly at our website you’ll see there’s far from a focus on national politics — there’s a great deal more science, health and environment reporting, which — particularly at present — is appropriate and is drawing an ever-faster growing audience to our content. Articles are based far more on research and analysis than opinion, and — far from being driven by the author’s status — we publish a great deal of work by early career academics based on their own research.
For the record I was one of those sceptical voices, mainly residing in the mainstream press, who expressed those very doubts about academics and journalism How wrong I was.