Professor Colleen Murrell joins editorial board of news site The Conversation
Professor Colleen Murrell’s appointment was announced to staff at the site by editor Jo Adetunji on Tuesday.
Prof Murrell is a Full Professor in the School of Communications at Dublin City University. She is currently lead researcher on the Reuters Digital News Report and a member of the DCU Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society. She is also a former journalist, having worked for news outlets such as the BBC, ITN (which produces ITV News and Channel 4 News), Associated Press and ABC.
Founded in Melbourne, The Conversation is an independent news site with full editorial mastheads for editions in Australia, the UK, the US and South Africa among others. Prof Murrell is joining the UK editorial board.
Prof Murrell said:
“I'm very excited to be joining The Conversation UK's editorial board because it's a project I've always believed in since it started back in Melbourne. It enables people to share their research while it's still ongoing, rather than waiting for academic journals to publish your findings perhaps years later. It is also a great place to network online with other researchers across the globe, to engage in discussion about current events and to build your profile in the media.
I used to write for The Conversation in Australia on topics I was researching at the time such as international newsgathering and media coverage of terrorism incidents. One piece I wrote regarding media coverage of the mosque shootings in Christchurch in 2019 was republished by ABC News and reached a huge audience.
At DCU there is so much important and innovative research being conducted by academics and research students and it is important to get it out into the public arena.”
The Conversation offers academics and researchers an opportunity to reach larger audiences as it publishes using a Creative Commons (attributions/no derivatives) licence meaning its content is regularly republished by major news outlets including the Guardian and RTÉ.
Prof Murrell is a regular contributor, most recently writing about the future of public service media, with a focus on the RTÉ crisis. She researches international newsgathering, crisis reporting and public service media, among other media related topics. Before coming to DCU, she worked as an academic at Monash University, Swinburne Institute of Technology and Deakin University. She got her PhD from the University of Melbourne and also had research fellowships at LSE, Oxford University (Reuters Institute) and City University in London.
The Conversation is funded by its university partners, with support from UKRI, Research England and other higher education and research sector funding bodies. DCU became a partner in October 2023.