[LINK] Happy Birthday 'The Conversation'

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

http://theconversation.edu.au/who_we_are

Who We Are

The Conversation is an independent source of information, analysis and 
commentary from the university and research sector — written by 
acknowledged experts and delivered directly to the public.

Our team of professional editors work with more than 2,500 academic 
authors to make this wealth of knowledge and expertise accessible to all. 

We aim to be a website you can trust .. 

http://theconversation.edu.au/editors-note-the-conversations-first-year-
6037

Over the (last) weekend The Conversation turned one. At this time last 
year, when we pressed the button to go live, we had no idea how many 
people would be interested in a website featuring the work of academics 
and researchers.

Since then we’ve had more than 2.5 million unique visitors, almost 4 
million total visits, and 8 million page views. Over 300 websites and 
newspapers have republished our content, which is free under our Creative 
Commons licence.

These are fairly big numbers, but online publishing is littered with 
impressive sounding stats and we’re not getting carried away. 

When The Conversation launched a year ago we had a simple goal: to 
improve the quality of public debate by getting more people with real 
knowledge and expertise to take part.

We set out to build a platform for all the immunologists and architects 
and economists and historians and climate scientists who were tearing out 
their hair while their life’s work was being misreported and 
misunderstood. 

Our only real measure of success can be whether more of these voices are 
being heard and accurately getting their message across.

So here are a few even more significant stats. 

With our 15 commissioning editors we have now built the largest virtual 
newsroom in Australia. 

More than 2,500 academic authors have registered as contributors to the 
site. And we have become a well-known resource of ideas, contacts and new 
talent for the newspapers, TV and radio.

Astonishingly, around 40% of the academics and researchers who write for 
The Conversation report they’ve received follow up requests from other 
media outlets.

So what does this all mean? 

We think we’re well on the way to building a new service of trusted, 
authenticated and responsible content. 

To do this we will continue to resist both the tug of simple certainty 
that is the hallmark of some media outlets and predictable, ideologically 
driven agendas.

Among readers there is also growing concern about the quality of current 
media offerings, and a greater scepticism towards what they read, 
especially given the phone-hacking and corrupt payment UK shenanigans. 

There is a now a definite “flight to quality” to those media outlets that 
provide a higher level of scrutiny, accountability and transparency. With 
our unique system of disclosure statements and author transparency we 
hope to be a leader in this field.

And as journalists we want to offer a service that is trustworthy, fun, 
relevant, and contributes to better informing our readers. We have shown 
that with a little editorial support, academics can write well and do so 
within the day, sometimes within hours. And on their subject, they have 
so much to offer.

Many of you have written to say you are enjoying The Conversation. But we 
still want to improve and have many more ideas in the pipeline. Today we 
unveil a few small “refresh” changes and tidy-ups, plus we introduce our 
first academic columnist/bloggers.

Each one of our sections carries articles by our editors on how they have 
seen the year past, and also what you most enjoyed.

At this point it is customary to thank all our readers. But we owe you 
more than that. As a brand new website we would not be here without the 
sustenance you have given us through your frequent visits to the site and 
constructive feedback and engagement.

We hope to keep you posted on our progress in the year ahead, but in the 
meantime, please do tell all your friends about The Conversation and 
encourage them all to sign up for the free daily newsletter.

Happy reading.

--

Cheers,
Stephen