"One of the things I'm sure we all agree on is that in Australia at the moment there is a paucity of quality public debate," said Ross Coulthart, Channel 7 Sunday Night presenter, MC at the launch of New Philosopher magazine. Coulthart described New Philosopher as a magazine that "is devoted to creative constructive discourse and thinking, rational thinking."
"We hear so much about the death of journalism, the death of media, but what we're really seeing is the old way of doing journalism, the old way of doing media," said Australian philosopher Tim Dean. "And I think this demonstrates that…there's a demand for it, there are people out there who want to explore great ideas and they want to read things that challenge them and open their eyes. Banality is easy, banality is sugar-coated doughnuts, it's very palatable but it gets sickly after a while, it's not very nourishing and I think there is definitely a demand out there for more substance."