Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Edited by John Watson, Melbourne University Press, $19.99.
Looking to provide a fresh viewpoint on the essential issues, this yearbook has become an annual best-selling collection that ‘navigates fake news and shouty views’.
Included are 50 ‘standout articles from Australia’s top thinkers’ including Peter Grest, Michelle Grattan, Peter Martin and Ann Tiernan.
As pointed out in the introduction, the articles collected in this volume have been chosen from among several thousand published on the Conversation Australia website in 2019.
“All were published in a particular moment in the news cycle, and many bear traces of the fleeting preoccupations of those moments. Each one has earned inclusion here because it contributes something of ongoing significance and is an exemplar of the clear writing based on evidence that is at the heart of the Conversations mission.”
According to editor Misha Ketchell, the publication’s “type of reliable and high-activity information is as important for the proper functioning of democracy as clean water is to health”.
“Our readership is growing rapidly because our work is useful, trustworthy, informative and engaging. In a time of increasing division, our focus is on collaboration.”
A little bit of authority goes a long way in an opinionated world. That’s why ‘we’re releasing a collection of some of the year’s most insightful evidence-based journalism from our newsroom. In it, Australia’s most erudite thinkers share expert analyses of the issues that shaped the nation in 2019’.