The Conversation expands its editorial team and boosts non-partisan coverage of public policy

As we gear up for an election year, the editors at The Conversation have been thinking hard about the role of quality journalism in the political process. We want to find better ways to provide readers and voters with the trustworthy information they need to make good decisions, for their own benefit and the community as a whole.

The growing difficulty of this task is now pretty well understood. A bit over a decade ago a former Australian Labor politician, Lindsay Tanner, published a book called “Sideshow”, in which he argued that politics had been dumbed down by media outlets more interested in entertainment than serious policy.

Tanner’s book drew on the work of academic and former Chair of The Conversation, Julianne Schultz, who in a 1998 monograph, “Reviving the Fourth Estate”, said entertainment values were increasingly driving news judgements in Australia.

Even earlier, Neil Postman’s 1985 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” had argued that due to the influence of television, public discourse in the United States was becoming a branch of show business.

All these trends predate the earthquakes unleashed by social media and AI. New York Times commentator Ezra Klein recently argued that the Democrats lost the 2024 presidential race, at least in part, because they lacked the wherewithal to navigate the attention economy created by social media algorithms and changing digital media consumption.

All of which is to say that news values and attention-seeking can’t easily coexist, but nor is it a winning strategy to publish quality information and simply hope people will find it.

To reach audiences with non-partisan information, editors have to commission and curate coverage that is relevant, current, reliable and able to hold attention in a crowded market.

In covering the 2025 Australian federal election, that’s exactly what we aim to do. We intend to focus on what the politicians say they will do in office, and draw on the expertise of Australia’s leading academics to analyse the likely outcomes.

As the election draws closer, The Conversation will also conduct a survey of you, our readers, to identify the issues that matter most to you. It will be called #settheagenda and, as was the case in previous campaigns, it will shape our coverage. Please look out for it and take a few minutes to let us know your thoughts.

We are also investing in our editorial team so we can bring you more quality information and academic analysis and expertise.

We have just made two new senior editorial appointments to ensure we have the capacity to cover the key issues.