Ten years ago this week, we took our first step toward finding out whether Taproot was worth building.
Mack and I had been working on the idea since January of 2016, after Postmedia merged the newsrooms of the Edmonton Journal and the Edmonton Sun and let go of dozens of journalists here and in three other cities. We did not think this would be the end of the shrinking of local media, and we felt called to do something about it.
We had landed on a name — taproots like radishes and carrots grow well in Edmonton, and we thought we might, too. We’d decided on a business model, inviting people to become members in return for the ability to express what they were curious about, and enlisting them to help us make our work freely available to everyone. But we didn’t know if anyone wanted what we were making.
Trish Audette-Longo, a former colleague of mine from the Journal who had moved into academia, gave us an occasion on which to find out. Her response to that January bloodletting was to organize an event with Brian Gorman of MacEwan University, timed to closely follow the Canadian Association of Journalists conference that was in Edmonton that year. They invited Linda Solomon-Wood of the National Observer, Kelly Toughill of the University of King’s College, Jorge Barrera of APTN, and me from the heretofore unknown Taproot Edmonton to speak at an event called Journalist Interrupted on May 26, 2016.
We had a landing page up that night, inviting people to become members for $10 a month or $100 a year. As near as we can tell, no one took us up on it at the event, but Mack’s blog post made the case in a more actionable way.
“Taproot is a home for local journalism that is created with the community rather than simply for it,” he wrote. “It’s our attempt to figure out what the future of local journalism looks like and we’d love for you to be a part of it!”
Enough people signalled their interest with their credit cards to persuade us it was worth continuing. And so we did.
“I am so excited to build this with you and with our community,” I commented on Mack’s post. “It feels like every conversation we’ve ever had about journalism (and we’ve had a lot) is now converted into action. We’re going to learn a lot, and make lots of mistakes, no doubt. But this is what we’re meant to do.”
It’s been a long, winding road since then, which you can read all about on our updated history page.
This kicks off the first in an occasional series of posts on how Taproot came to be, as we mark milestones up until the 10th anniversary of our incorporation in January 2027.
Many thanks to all of those who helped us get here, especially those early adopters, some of whom are still with us! Be like them and become a member. You’ll help Taproot continue to accomplish what we set out to do all those years ago.
Taproot Publishing 