Hello there.

You’ve seen our reporting, you’ve seen us on the ground and you’ve been part of our process every step of the way. Now, Discourse Media is launching a regular series of newsletters that’ll involve you, dear readers, in our editorial decisions even more. 

Starting this week, you can subscribe to newsletters from each of these Discourse reporters:

• Trevor Jang specializes in land rights, and is currently focusing on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project.  

• Emma Jones specializes in gender and identity, and is investigating B.C.’s anti-violence sector.

• Brielle Morgan specializes in child welfare, and is focusing on permanency for youth in care.

• Wawmeesh Hamilton specializes in Indigenous issues, and is reporting on reconciliation.

Leading up the B.C. provincial election on May 9, you’ll receive weekly or biweekly newsletters from Trevor, Emma, Brielle and Wawmeesh. But far from being a platform for our voices — they’re intended to be a platform for yours.

Much has been said about the alarming decline of local and in-depth journalism, as well as how news outlets are overlooking smaller communities and underreported issues in their coverage. To address that, we envisioned these newsletters to function as local papers — but organized around issues. They’re hubs where readers can communicate with Discourse reporters directly, share what they know and what they want to know about an issue, get information on events and resources, and contribute to a forward-looking conversation about how to fix the complex problems we’re facing in our communities.

As always, we’ll tell you what we’ve done, what we’re doing and who’s inspiring us. But most importantly, we’ll tell you how to get involved in our reporting at all stages — from start to finish.

Thanks,
Erin Millar, editor-in-chief and CEO
Anita Li, media innovation editor

New Faces

We’re excited to announce two new hires: media innovation editor Anita Li and data reporter Francesca Fionda. 

Anita Li is Discourse's first team member based in Toronto, and brings experience from Canadian national newspapers and American digital media startups. She previously held senior editorial roles at Fusion, Complex Media and Mashable, and has also edited and reported for the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Anita gave a TEDx talk on the importance of diversity in newsrooms, and frequently provides commentary on the future of media. She'll lead Discourse's coverage of journalism innovation and contribute to digital strategy. 

Francesca Fionda brings investigative research expertise to Discourse. As an award-winning journalist at Global's current affairs program 16x9, Francesca was responsible for technical and scientific elements of original investigations. She's also worked as an investigative associate producer at CBC's The Fifth Estate. Francesca’s work has earned nominations and awards from the Canadian Screen Awards, Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada Media Awards, Radio Television and Digital News Association, and the New York Festivals Worlds.

We'd also like to welcome interns Anya Zoledziowski and Brent Holmes, both of whom are students in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia.

Kudos

Discourse Media has earned a coveted Edward R. Murrow Award for its data-driven investigation of racial profiling of Indigenous Canadians by police in western Canadian cities. The award, for excellence in investigative reporting in the international small digital news category, recognizes our contribution to “Justice Isn’t Blind," a months-long investigation probing why Indigenous Canadians are so overrepresented in the justice system.

The Murrow is just one of several nods we received this award season. “Justice Isn’t Blind” is also a finalist for the National Magazine Awards in the investigative reporting and longform feature writing categories. We also earned a nomination for best editorial package from the Digital Publishing Awards for “Power Struggle,” our ongoing investigation into global energy poverty. Finally, we've been shortlisted for the Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism for our body of work focused on reconciliation.