Unveiling The Green Line’s Toronto election partnership
In advance of the June 26 mayoral by-election, my outlet has embarked on an exciting new partnership.
Hey y’all! Anita here. I’m publishing the June edition of The Other Wave a little later in the month than usual because The Green Line team and I have been busy working on covering the leadup to Toronto’s mayoral by-election, which takes place in just over a week. 📅
As part of our ongoing coverage, The Green Line asked all 102 mayoral candidates (yes, including the dog) to complete a survey. We wanted to learn more about their respective platforms, and why they believe they’re the best person for the job. Featuring responses from the leading candidates — Olivia Chow, Mark Saunders, Ana Bailão, Brad Bradford, Mitzie Hunter, Chloe Brown, Josh Matlow and Anthony Furey — and dozens more, our team compiled the survey results in an easily digestible format, so Torontonians can learn which candidate’s views are most in line with their values. Below, we’ve linked to the candidate profiles, as well as an op-ed about how to build a joyful city from guest contributors and the results for our audience survey in which we polled The Green Line community members about their views on election issues.
Beyond this coverage, I’m thrilled to announce that The Green Line is collaborating with The Trillium for our Toronto election project, a journalism partnership for readers who care deeply about Toronto and the people, policies, and politics at play.
We’re pairing The Green Line’s unique community-driven, solutions-oriented journalism with The Trillium’s signature insider coverage of Ontario politics and policy to dig deep into the city’s problems and connect you with the plans the Toronto mayoral candidates are proposing to fix them.
The Trillium is a trusted source for insightful, in-depth coverage of politics and policymaking in Ontario. Led by editor-in-chief Jessica Smith Cross, formerly the EIC of iPolitics and QP Briefing, The Trillium’s full-time team of experienced, dedicated reporters covers the latest developments from Queen’s Park. They investigate the government and the broader public sector, as well as issues in healthcare, education, energy and infrastructure.
The Trillium is operated by Village Media, whose CEO Jeff Elgie is someone I’ve long admired for the trailblazing work he and his team have done to fill in gaps in coverage in local news in Canada. Born digital, Village Media operates nearly two dozen local news websites across Ontario, including GuelphToday, SooToday, BarrieToday, Sudbury.com and BurlingtonToday.
This partnership caps off a fantastic month for The Green Line in which we were nominated for four journalism awards and won two — all within our first year of existence! The Digital Publishing Awards nominated us for Best News Coverage (Community Publication) for our story, “In Newtonbrook, a fight for modular housing for the unhoused is heating up,” by Dupe Badejo, Alex Varoutas and myself.
Meanwhile, RTDNA Canada nominated us for Overall Excellence in Digital for “Living with COVID-19 in Toronto”; for Enterprise Journalism for "Weed as Work: How Labour and Capital Move in the Cannabis Industry" by freelance feature reporter Megan Kinch; and for Feature News (Large Market) under the Video category for “Harwood event venue provides oasis for local artists” by Dupe Badejo, Alex Varoutas and myself. CityNews Toronto, which airs The Green Line segments on our co-produced community show, was also nominated for Best TV Newscast.
Ultimately, we won for Overall Excellence in Digital, beating out CBC Toronto and CBC Quebec, and for Feature News (Large Market), beating out another CityNews Toronto team, CBC Toronto and CBC Montreal.
Huge congrats to our fellow nominees, and most importantly, my phenomenal team without whom this wouldn’t be possible. 💚
Send me your long-form pitches for The Green Line
The Green Line is interested in long-form pitches from experienced investigative and/or feature reporters based in Toronto that tackle the following systemic issues in the city through a solutions lens: housing affordability, queer history and the dance club scene downtown. We offer highly competitive freelance rates. If you’re interested in pitching, please send me your resume, cover letter and links to three clips (must be longform features).
Quick and Clean
“In my community” and “Cool stuff I like” will be back…
Watch this Provocation Ideas Festival panel I spoke on last month, titled “The Promise and Perils of Digital,” alongside Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown, former CBC and NPR executive Jeffrey Dvorkin, and Samara Centre for Democracy executive director Sabreena Delhon.
I had a blast hosting the 2023 Digital Publishing Awards Soirée and celebrating the best of Canadian journalism earlier this month, so I recommend checking out the newly published event photos.
Poynter released a super cool media literacy zine, which includes activities and tips on spotting misinformation online, including identifying computer-generated content.
How you can support The Other Wave
My professional mission has always been to support the global movement towards more thoughtful, impactful news coverage, and all the ways that manifests. If The Other Wave gets you to think even a little differently about journalism, especially in Canada, then I will have accomplished what I set out to do. And if TOW gets you to take action and support Canadian media outlets — especially ones that strive to be innovative and inclusive — I will have exceeded my expectations.
If my values and goals resonate with you, please consider supporting fiercely independent media analysis that fills in gaps in coverage of the Canadian journalism landscape. How? Feel free to provide feedback, pass along resources, donate money or simply share this newsletter with your friends.