Christopher Pyne flags the government will pull funding for The Conversation in budget
Education minister Christopher Pyne has flagged government funding for academia-meets-journalism website The Conversation will be pulled in next week’s budget.
Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday Pyne said while The Conversation had done a “great job …the contract they signed with the Commonwealth was to be self-sustaining in 3 years”.
“They were given $3.5m, in that time they have expanded to Africa, the United States and the UK and I expect that they are in a position where they will be self-sustaining otherwise they wouldn’t be able to expand overseas in the way that they have,” Pyne said.
The Conversation publishes essays and articles from academics and uses Creative Commons licensing to allow other websites to republish the work. It has an editorial staff of 22 in Australia – mostly editors – as well as 8 commercial and IT staff.
There should be now no doubt this government is determined to silence any and all avenues of discussion and scrutiny. First ABC and SBS cuts – now The Conversation. Fewer and fewer vehicles for intelligent analysis of government. Scary.
They aren’t totally against “academia”, funding the “academic” Bjorn Lomberg.
an absolute joke, but we are pretty apathetic in Australia.
Intellectual and important discussion cancelled…and ill just hand another $800 million to Rupert if you dont mind.
@offal: it’d be interesting to know just how much pressure ole Rupes exerted to get the Convo muzzled. It’s a fantastic read, and thus is gaining and growing audience in that sweet-spot of A-B demographic. Newscorpse, behind its paywall, loosing more audience, loosing more $$$$.
A government that isn’t interested in debate and discussion and opening up avenues for intellectual enquiry just looks unconfident about itself and fearful. It will come back to haunt them. The more they try and silence/shut down legitimate discussion in favour of tricked up ‘research’ like Bjorn Lomberg’s WA outfit, the more desperate they seem. Slashing the aid budget looks xenophobic, insular and ungenerous. How very sad.
It’s losing.
(Has the Murdoch press permanently damaged your vocabulary?)
You can have all the debate you want.. just not on my dime.
I’m sorry, but in what universe is a government obliged to continue to pay for a potentially self-sustaining news organisation? Funding wasn’t “pulled”, the contract simply expires, and they’ve clearly proven that they can become self-sustaining via donations from charitable organisations to spread out to a global audience.
And we wonder why we’re running out of money in this country …
Why is it up to taxpayers to continue fund projects like this, particularly after a huge leg-up to start with? Produce a quality product and it will pay for itself and more – as was the agreement.
That’s right Geoff, let them get their own funding from other leftoids.
All you others, especially Cannes(d) Loughter, no one is shutting the place down, you are quite welcome to fork out your own cash if you want to get your commie agenda fix.
The Conversation should not have public funding, as it is very biased towards the left and green side of politics.
I have never looked at it, I suspect they didn’t welcome conservatives, ironically if they had it would have made it more likely to have retain its funding. Oh well their purity means the have to now go and earn a living.
The Conversation reports politics honestly. The Coalition cannot stand that.
Good !
Why should taxpayers of all stripes pay for “conversation” that supports one side’s political causes only? That seems eminently unfair. If you need government to facilitate conversation then you’re doing it wrong.
I love the comments on this article.
“Wah wah wah. These bloody Tories have taken the money, my money, away from my favourite academik [sic] internet rag/journal. It must be Rupert’s doing…or worse… Wah wah wah.”
You people really think that the public’s money is actually ‘your money’ and that you are entitled to do whatever you like with ‘your money’. Er….. note to idiots….
It’s not your money. It is the tax-paying public’s money. Get over it and yourselves. I bet none of the negative commentators here actually earn a single penny for themselves in private enterprise. I bet everyone of these losers actually work in guvvmint funded [ie; publicly taxpayer funded] jobs of one sort or another.
Pathetic.
An organisation that can afford to start up overseas websites including in that headquarters of intellectual thinking and academia Africa hardly needs government funding anymore.
Why is withdrawal of government funding synonymous with ‘shutting it down’? Millions of blogs exist without government funding. The conversation can add a donation button and all the readers who value it can donate to keep it going. Simple.
Astonishing. Rather than the being grateful that they received a $3.5 MILLION donation for their new TV show featuring never heard of talking heads, all nodding in agreement with one another, they are now resentful. There’s gratitude for you.
Hey James @ 6 May 15 10:23 pm,
The Conversation is biased towards intellectual and factual debate based on evidence.
Just because that is what the ‘Left’ side of politics also favours does not make it wrong. Maybe the ‘Right’ could invest more in evidence based policy and they would not be floundering at the moment, trying to silence any and all dissent.
Oh and while the Government is at it, they should stop subsidising all those ‘Right’ policies supporting multi-nationals and their tax avoidance. Maybe stop pumping so much of my tax dollars into destroying the environment by handing cash to miners and big polluters? That’s fair, right?
I find it astonishing that this neoconservative government can’t find a measly $2million to sustain two dozen editors, 8 IT staff and a few tea ladies to produce content viewed by social-justice warriors, for social-justice warriors (read, #hashtag activists). They’re only in the hoe to the tune of almost $1,000,000,000 per week, what’s a couple of mil?
The ABC kept their billion+, SBS a third of a billion?
One thing this country really lacks, is publicly funded left-wing media outlets! It’s all Rupert’s fault!
Jackie (7 May 15 – 12:27 pm) says;
“The Conversation is biased towards intellectual and factual debate based on evidence.”
Errr.. So intellectual and factual debate requires bias now? How postmodern.
[King, of course not. Jackie is just being moronically oxy. Ed.]
‘The first thing we, after the revolution, is we kill all the academics.’
Prof. J. Dobbs. (Official Pope of The Church of Bob Dobbs. Inc. TM)
The next taxpayer funded ALP/Green media branches to take a financial haircut should be the ABC and SBS. When was it taxpayers’ responsibility to fund/kick start/prop up media outlets such as The Conversation. No wonder the country is in debt.
For a start, the funding isn’t being pulled – the agreed period is over.
Secondly – why should the Conversation be publuicly funded? Even in its aims, it is hardly pluralist, being focused on academia – although there has been a clear drift into politics.
In any case, unless the editors wish to appeal only to a Leftist audience, they should broaden the political views available on the site.
Lastly, why should anyone assume Murdoch be resonsible for the goivernment ending the funding? We have a huge and growing debt in Australia, and the government is spending more than its income. It is entirely responsible to rein in some unnecessary costs, especially when there are thousands of well-patronised blogs which receive nothing more than donations. It’s a matter of content.