We finally figured out how to define success at The Green Line
Check out TGL's newly published 2023 Impact Report, which looks at everything our team accomplished last year.
Hey y’all! As I write this newsletter, I’m on a plane back home after my trip to Chiang Mai (and briefly Seoul), which included speaking and soaking up the ✨ warm vibes ✨ at Splice Beta 2024. Kudos to Rishad and Alan, as well as their team of smiley volunteers, for pulling off a genuinely community-oriented summit featuring awe-inspiring journalism innovation from across Asia that’s often overlooked by the the west. This summit definitely won’t be my last. 👏
As I begin my recovery from jet lag and action-packed adventures on the ~ mother continent ~ (not to mention a certain U.S. election), I want to share something I’m really proud of that my team put together for 2023: our impact report. We’re debuting this late in the year because I didn’t decide to create a report until about halfway through 2024, after attending the many journalism conferences (including LION’s Independent News Sustainability Summit and Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Community-Centered Symposium) that focused on defining metrics for success for community-focused outlets. These sessions challenged my thinking and gave me the tools to accurately articulate The Green Line’s accomplishments, both qualitatively and quantitatively — which as many community outlets intimately understand, can be difficult to do since we aren’t pageviews-driven but rather impact-driven.
So, without further ado, here’s an excerpt from The Green Line’s 2023 Impact Report, which you can continue reading in full here (expect to see our even more refined 2024 report come out sooner next year):
Partnerships — with individuals and local organizations — are The Green Line’s backbone. Not only do our partners help us generate social impact, they also help us diversify revenue streams that open up financial opportunities that aren’t accessible to traditional news publications. This is called a Civic Partnerships Model (Editor’s note: Shout out to El Tímpano for the inspiration!).
For example, this year, we worked with Riverside BIA to organize a marketplace event where local vendors sold artisan goods and tasty food, while attendees shared their problems with and solutions for addressing food insecurity in the downtown East End neighbourhood. This event enabled us to show support for a community struggling with food access, but also helped us open up an unconventional revenue stream: indirect access to government funding. For Riverside BIA, the event and our story series helped support the hyperlocal economy and even attracted donations from across Toronto for a Riverside-based community group to tackle food insecurity.
The Green Line’s ongoing partnership with CityNews Toronto is another example of our unique Civic Partnerships Model. It’s expanded our audience and exposed our brand to even more Torontonians. For CityNews, collaborating with us helped the legacy broadcaster connect with Gen Z and Millennial audiences.
The Green Line is on vanguard of the future of journalism by innovating the way we deliver hyperlocal information, and by training Canada’s next generation of journalists to be more community-minded. The Green Line is not just a publication. We are community members just like you who love Toronto, and want Torontonians to not just survive but thrive in this rapidly changing city we call home.
If you’d like to partner or collaborate with The Green Line, or just learn more about the stats and stories behind our 2023 Impact Report, please reply to this newsletter! I’d love to hear from you.
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 thanks to Rachel Schallom Lobdell, former VP of news transformation at Gannett and editorial director of Fortune, for highlighting The Green Line in one the recent editions of her Substack Long Story Short! Here’s an excerpt of what Rachel had to say:
In my newsletter this week, I fangirled over Anita Li's work at The Green Line, a hyperlocal news organization in Canada. Her presentation at the LION: Local Independent Online News Publishers Summit has stayed with me.
I’m incredibly bullish on these new ways of thinking about utilizing journalism to stimulate civic engagement and serve audiences with the information they need, whether that's considered "news" or not
Quick and Clean
Many thanks to Journalism.co.uk for featuring me as one of two Canadians on its list of 100 media consultants to follow. I’m chuffed! If you’d like to work together, contact me here or just reply to this newsletter.
One of my fantastic consulting clients, a youth-empowering digital platform focused on sustainability called re•generation, is hiring a digital marketing and documentary distribution manager. If you’re interested, check out the job here.
I spoke briefly to the Review of Journalism about The Green Line’s civic partnerships model for this feature titled “Ditch the Ads,” so check it out to learn more.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation invited me to be part of this essential campaign for Media Literacy Week, which encourages newsrooms to counter misinformation and earn Canadians’ trust with fact-based reporting. Support and share #TrustWisely here.
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.