How to create local news for people turning away from ‘big-J journalism'
The Green Line talks about this strategy in a recent feature profile by Nieman Journalism Lab.
Hey y’all! Anita here. As I wind down for the holidays and look ahead to next year, I plan to do far less travelling and far more hunkering down to both relax with loved ones and also really focus on executing The Green Line’s exciting new strategy in 2025. 😌
The last few months of 2024 have been big ones for our team, and we’re ending with a bang thanks to Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, a respected industry publication that aims to “help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age.” Last week, Nieman published “The Green Line creates local news for the people turning away from ‘big-J journalism,’” a front-page feature profile that dives deep into how we fulfil our mission of improving the lives of people in Toronto, and appeal to young Torontonians by combining events, explainers and solutions. Read the full article here, then check out some highlights, below.
Toronto-based local news site The Green Line doesn’t just want to inform its audience; it aspires to improve their lives. The Green Line describes its mission as investigating "the way Torontonians live to report on solutions, actions, and resources that help you become happier in our city." Launched in April 2022 and named for a local train line, its primary output is a news product pioneered (and trademarked!) by founder Anita Li: an "action journey" that combines traditional reporting, community events, and solutions and action.
The Green Line is part of a broader movement to redefine local news as civic information. Li significantly changed language on The Green Line’s website to move away from even describing it as journalism and news, and instead wants to emphasize branding focused on “information services and community services.” (One line on the site: “How many people do you know who don’t trust the news or are bored by it? (Yeah, same here.) That’s why we’re on a mission to make important information less boring and more user-friendly. Our Action Journeys are solutions-focused to help more Torontonians feel like they can thrive here.”) People “are turning away from the idea of big-J journalism and news,” Li said.
Li aspires to be a successful “old-school local business” akin to the local breakfast place in her neighborhood called Maha’s. While it doesn’t have the scale to serve everyone in Toronto, it always has an hours-long wait thanks to customer loyalty and deep connections with the community (Li knows Maha, her children, and the people who work at the restaurant), and can afford to close for a month every December so the family can return home to Egypt. Li contrasted The Green Line’s Maha’s-style local model — attentive to its mission, personalized relationships with its audience, and the quality of life of its team — with her time in “venture-backed digital media” like Mashable and Complex Media. The community-based model, to her, has far better potential for sustainability in every sense.
See y’all in the new year, and have a lovely holiday break with your loved ones!
The Green Line opportunities: text/video pitches
The Green Line is looking for freelancers interested in short-form and long-form pitches for text-based articles, as well as videos, from experienced reporters based in Toronto that tackle systemic issues in the city through a solutions lens. We offer highly competitive freelance rates. If you’re interested in pitching, please email your pitch, resume and links to three clips to hello@thegreenline.to.
Shout-out
Many congrats to my consulting clients on their major accomplishments!
RideAlike is one of the 2024 winners of ventureLAB’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund and for being featured in Canadian Business Owner magazine.
re-generation co-executive director Gareth Gransaull was recognized as one of Corporate Knights’ top 30 under 30 for 2024.
Quick and Clean
Thank you to SembraMedia for featuring The Green Line as an “impactful media outlet” in North America. The feature is part of Global Project Oasis, a research effort to map independent digital media organizations, news creators and publishers-in-exile across 68 countries. Watch it here.
A 2021 article posted on Splice Media’s blog titled “We aren’t getting enough journalists from different socioeconomic backgrounds. This is what we need to do” resurfaced again recently in my Linkedin timeline. Given the current financial struggles of many working and middle class people worldwide, it’s very timely, so give it a read.
I’ve been loving the Substack of Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, for his broad yet incisive analyses of journalism industries worldwide. I highly recommend reading “Journalism's fight for survival in a postliterate democracy” and “Journalism's biggest problems are now what we don't control”
How you can support The Other Wave
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I just saw this - thanks for the shout out, Anita!