Andrew JaspanAM (born 20 April 1952) is aBritish-Australian journalist and Founding Director and Editor-in-Chief of 360info. He is the Founder ofThe Conversation. He was previously editor-in-chief of Melbourne'sThe Age, editor of London'sThe Observer,The Sunday Times Scotland (Glasgow),Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh),The Scotsman Edinburgh), andSunday Herald (Glasgow), and publisher and managing editor ofThe Big Issue London.
Jaspan was born in Manchester and lived in Australia between the ages of seven and fourteen.[1] He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Modern History and Philosophy from theUniversity of Manchester.[2] He did his thesis on "The Role of the BBC in UK politics".
After graduating, Jaspan launchedThe New Manchester Review magazine which focussed on news, investigations and arts and culture.[3] To help fund the magazine, Jaspan ran Monday night concerts at theBand on the Wall pub between 1977–9, showcasingpunk bands (includingJoy Division,The Buzzcocks, andThe Fall) as well as poets (includingJohn Cooper Clark andAdrian Henri).[3] He then started work in the Manchester office ofThe Daily Telegraph andDaily Mirror in 1980.[1]
In 1983, he moved to London to joinThe Times, first working on the foreign news desk and then the home news desk.[1] In 1985 he joinedThe Sunday Times as an assistant editor.[1] In 1988 the paper's editor,Andrew Neil, asked him to move to Glasgow and launch a Scotland edition ofTheSunday Times as a competitor to the newly launchedScotland on Sunday byThe Scotsman Publications.[4] A year later, he moved instead to be editor ofScotland on Sunday, relaunching it as a quality newspaper which went on to establish a reputation for investigative and campaigning journalism.[4]
In 1993 he was appointed editor ofThe Scotsman but six months later was appointed by theGuardian Media Group as editor ofThe Observer.[5] In 1996 he was appointed publisher ofThe Big Issue, the street paper sold byhomeless people.[6][7] The Founder,John Bird, asked Jaspan to improve the quality and mainstream credibility of the magazine.[8][9]
In 1998 he joinedScottish Media Group in Glasgow to prepare the business case for the launch of a new paper in 1999,The Sunday Herald.[10] Under his editorship the paper won numerous awards including Scottish Newspaper of the Year and UK Sunday Newspaper of the Year.[11] The paper closed in 2018.[12]
In 2004, Jaspan was appointed editor-in-chief ofThe Age andThe Sunday Age.[1] In 2007,The Age won the Pacific region's Newspaper of the Year award for the first time.[13] 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.
Jaspan first discussed the concept ofThe Conversation in 2009 withGlyn Davis, vice-chancellor at theUniversity of Melbourne. Jaspan wrote a report for Davis on the university's engagement with the public, envisioning the university as "a giant newsroom", with academics and researchers collaboratively providing expert, informed content that engaged with the news cycle and major current affairs issues. This vision became the blueprint forThe Conversation. The model he developed is highly unusual for a news site: content is written by academics working in collaboration with professional editors, publishedopen access under aCreative Commons licence, and is funded by collaborative frameworks for academic institutions The concept was as a response to what Jaspan described at the time as "increasing market failure in delivering trusted content"[14] and declining editorial diversity in Australia. The website launched in Australia in early 2011 after three years of development.
Jaspan took The Conversation to the UK where he raised the launch funds and established a base at City University London with the support of the VC, Sir Paul Curran, and Jonathan Hyams. It launched in 2013.
He then took the concept to the US where Thomas Fiedler, then dean of the School of Communications at Boston University, offered to hostThe Conversation U.S. and provide space for the first newsroom. With a university base established, Jaspan was able to raise the $2.3m launch funding and launched in 2014, initially led by Jaspan as U.S. CEO, Margaret Drain as editor, and Bruce Wilson leading development and university relations. For the U.S. pilot Jaspan secured support from theHoward Hughes Medical Institute,Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, theWilliam and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and four other foundations.
Jaspan then helped set up the other sites in Africa and France in 2015, Canada in 2017, Indonesia in 2017, and Spain in 2018.
Jaspan leftThe Conversation in April 2018, with professional friction cited as a contributing factor,[5][15] to work on establishing a new media platform called360info.[16][17] The project was initially a partnership between universities of Deakin, Melbourne, RMIT and Western Sydney. From 2017-2020 he was based inRMIT's School of Media and Communication,[6][18] then moved toMonash University, which became the host university for the project.[17] In November 2021 it launched as360info. Instead of a focus on breaking news,360info reports on the worlds' most pressing challenges and offers research-driven solutions. 360info provides newsrooms with free access to all its content under Creative Commons. In that way replenishing the content ecosystem with high-grade specialist content - and to help displace a reliance on the increasingly poor and shallow that is widely available. By the end of 2025 it has published over 3000 articles from 190 universities worldwide and is distributed by over 1,800 newsrooms and publishers[citation needed]. It has editors working in Delhi, Jakarta, Milan, Athens and Melbourne.
The British Journalism Review published in December 2025an article by Jaspan on the thinking behind the launch of The Conversation and 360info.
In the2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Jaspan was made a Member in the General Division of theOrder of Australia for "significant service to the print and digital media, and to tertiary education".[19]
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Editor ofThe Scotsman 1994–1995 | Succeeded by James Seaton |
| Preceded by | Editor ofThe Observer 1995–1996 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by New position | Editor of theSunday Herald 1999–2003 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Editor ofThe Age 2004–2008 | Succeeded by |
Authority control databases: Academics |
|---|