Andrew Jaspan
Andrew Jaspan (born 20 April 1952) is a British-Australian journalist and the co-founder of "The Conversation". He was previously editor-in-chief of "The Age", editor of "The Observer", "The Sunday Times", "Scotland on Sunday", "The Scotsman", and "Sunday Herald", and publisher and managing editor of "The Big Issue" London. Early life and education. Jaspan was born in Manchester, and lived in Australia between the ages of seven and fourteen. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Modern History and Philosophy from the University of Manchester. He did his thesis on "The Role of the  BBC in UK politics". Career. After graduating, Jaspan launched "The New Manchester Review" magazine which focussed on news, investigations and arts and culture. To help fund the magazine, Jaspan ran Monday night concerts at the Band on the Wall pub between 1977–9, showcasing punk bands (including Joy Division, The Buzzcocks, and The Fall) as well as poets (including John Cooper Clark and Adrian Henri). He then started work in the Manchester office of "The Daily Telegraph" and "Daily Mirror" in 1980. In 1983, he moved to London to join "The Times," first working on the foreign news desk and then  the home news desk. In 1985 he joined "The Sunday Times" as an assistant editor. In 1988 the paper's editor, Andrew Neil, asked him to move to Glasgow and launch a Scotland edition of "The" "Sunday Times" as a competitor to the newly launched "Scotland on Sunday" by The Scotsman Publications. A year later, he moved instead to be editor of "Scotland on Sunday," relaunching it as a quality newspaper which went on to establish a reputation for investigative and campaigning journalism."" In 1993 he was appointed editor of "The Scotsman" but six months later was appointed by the  Guardian Media Group as editor of "The Observer". In 1996 he was appointed publisher of "The Big Issue", the street paper sold by homeless people. The Founder, John Bird, asked Jaspan to improve the quality and mainstream credibility of the magazine. In 1998 he joined Scottish Media Group in Glasgow to prepare the business case for the launch of a new paper in 1999, "The Sunday Herald". Under his editorship the paper won numerous awards including Scottish Newspaper of the Year and UK Sunday Newspaper of the Year. The paper closed in 2018. In 2004, Jaspan was appointed editor-in -chief of "The Age" and "The Sunday Age". In 2007, "The Age" won the Pacific region's Newspaper of the Year award for the first time. In August 2008, Jaspan left his position as part of a major restructuring of Fairfax that included 550 job losses across its Australian operations. Jaspan was replaced as editor-in-chief by Paul Ramadge in September 2008. Section::::"The Conversation". In 2008, Jaspan started work on developing "The Conversation", an independent not-for-profit news and analysis website drawing authors from the university and research sector. The model is highly unusual for a news site : content is written by academics working in collaboration with professional editors, published open access under a Creative Commons licence, and is funded by collaborative frameworks for academic institutions. The concept was initiated at the request of Glyn Davis, then the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, and was a response to what Jaspan described at the time as "increasing market failure in delivering trusted content" and declining editorial diversity in Australia. The website launched in Australia in early 2011 after three years of development. Section::::"The Global Academy". Jaspan left "The Conversation" in April 2017, with professional and personal friction  cited as contributing factors, to work on establishing a new media platform called "The Global Academy". The project was initially a partnership between universities of Deakin, Melbourne, RMIT and Western Sydney. From 2017-2020 he was based in RMIT's School of Media and Communication, then moved to Monash University, which became the host university for the project. Awards and recognition. In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Jaspan was made a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia for "significant service to the print and digital media, and to tertiary education".