We’re happy beyond measure to introduce you to Taproot Edmonton’s new managing editor, Tim Querengesser.
Tim has an extensive background in journalism, including two years as managing editor of the now departed Metro Edmonton. He left that job in 2017 “because I felt the entire legacy newspaper model was no longer working in the way I had experienced in happier days, especially those at my first reporting gig at the Yukon News, still one of my favourite papers for its values and approach,” he said.
Most recently, Tim was the senior advisor for communications and engagement at the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. But his heart remained with journalism, and Taproot has turned out to be his path back to the newsroom.
“I feel connected to the values, the approach, the unapologetic fascination with Edmonton minutiae, and the sustainable thinking behind the business,” he said.
Tim will take over responsibility for the day-to-day operations of Taproot Edmonton’s journalism, marshalling his wealth of experience to guide our editorial team and freeing up the founders to concentrate on continuing to build a sustainable business.
We often talk about Taproot as part of the connective tissue that makes our community work better. That approach aligns with the way Tim thinks.
“I see my ultimate job in all of the many things I do as making my community a better place,” he said, noting his past involvement in the Edmonton Wayfinding Society, his efforts to bring bike-sharing to the city, and an e-bike maintenance workshop he recently hosted. “In the past, being this involved was kind of taboo for journalists. I think it’s what has opened my eyes to different audiences and communities.”
That said, Tim is hardcore when it comes to finding stuff out and telling people about it, and has been since he was very young, raised by an inveterate newspaper reader and a typewriter repairman.
“I read newspapers early, I wrote things — often on a typewriter — from a young age, and I formed ideas early,” he said. “I remember reading my first essay on world politics to my rather bewildered Grade 5 class.”
Stephanie comes to us from Corus Entertainment, where she worked as a reporter and content coordinator in the newsroom serving 630 CHED and Global News Edmonton. Before that, she was a multimedia journalist in Kamloops, B.C., a job she landed after graduating from the radio and television program at NAIT.
“I had always cared a lot about politics and social issues, but I didn’t see many of the other people my age engaging in news,” she said of the path that led her to us. “Then when the pandemic hit, people became way more involved, and it really showed me how important journalism is.”
At first, she thought she wanted to be a TV news anchor, but working at the NAIT Nugget changed her mind. “I quickly realized I would rather be talking to people out in the community.”
Stephanie will wear a few hats at Taproot. She has taken over responsibility for the items in our weekly roundups. She’ll also report and write stories, and she’ll appear now and then on Speaking Municipally, as she did in Episode 238. (Tune in not only for a geek-out on transit and zoning but also for co-host Troy Pavlek’s reaction to her pitch-perfect radio voice in the rapid-fire jokes at the end.)
Stephanie will also be writing our weekly “On the agenda” feature, as she did on Oct. 23, summarizing what’s coming up at city council and its committees for the coming week.
“I’m a huge city council nerd, and it’s my favourite thing to report on,” she said. “I love how Taproot endeavours to get people to care more about the important decisions being made at city hall.”
We’re trying something new at the top of some of our roundups, as part of our continuing quest to build a sustainable, tech-enabled media business that helps our community understand itself better.
Instead of a story at the top of the Jan. 17 Food Roundup and the Jan. 18 Health Innovation Roundup, you’ll see a message from the editor pulling together some threads in a meaningful way. We pay a lot of attention to these topics, and sometimes we notice things that aren’t really stories and aren’t really items, but are still worth attention and context. That’s what we’d like to provide at the top of the roundups, in a way that’s more conversational than our usual editorial voice.
We’ll try this again with a couple of other roundups next week to see if we’ve hit on a format that will stick. We’d love to know what you think — send your thoughts to hello@taprootedmonton.ca.
Why are we doing this?
Change is the Taproot way. We started with long-form features inspired by readers’ questions, and we published them as soon as we had the time and money to put them out, which in the early days was at a pretty slow cadence. Then we introduced roundups, our weekly newsletters gathering items on specific topics, serving readers’ curiosity in a different and more frequent way and opening up a new revenue stream via sponsorship. Their format has evolved over time.
Two years ago, we launched The Pulse, a weekday newsletter that distributes our stories and curates news and items from other sources to help Edmontonians get on with their day in an informed way. That product has become the centre of our editorial work, and its readership is much higher than that of any roundup.
When we started The Pulse, it made sense to distribute the stories that we wrote for the various roundup beats in that newsletter, along with elements that are only distributed in The Pulse, such as some of our city council coverage, our weekly moment in history, and our event listings.
Now we’d like to differentiate the content of The Pulse from that of the roundups, partly for some operational flexibility but also because we think it will be a better experience for readers. We want to encourage you to subscribe to The Pulse for a daily look at what’s happening in Edmonton, and to the roundups for deeper dives into what’s happening in tech, food, health innovation, the region, the arts, and business. You may have a greater incentive to do that with less duplication.
Will we still have stories on our roundup beats?
Many of our story ideas emerge from the topics our readers want us to pay attention to, so we will naturally continue to cover stories that fit our roundup beats, whether this new format sticks around or not. Those stories will continue to be curated into items for the roundups they fit into, as is our practice now.
This gives us the flexibility to publish daily stories that aren’t necessarily related to or timed with a particular roundup. We think this could improve the quality of our work.
What’s next?
We’ll experiment with this for a couple of weeks, then make a call on whether to keep doing it. If we do, that will likely lead to some other changes we’re considering to improve the experience for readers and paying members.
As always, if you’d like to help us go further faster, become a Taproot member or sponsor. You’ll be helping us build what comes next in local journalism.
Happy holidays from the crew at Taproot Edmonton! We’re taking a break until Jan. 3, when we’ll return with The Pulse and our regular collection of weekly roundups and podcasts.
We have put together a few things to keep you informed in the meantime:
Debbi Serafinchon has upsized her regular weekend listings to a giant holiday agenda of festive things to do between now and Jan. 2. She has also compiled Coming up this month and beyond to look ahead to some other events for your calendar.
Speaking Municipally’s annual Jeopardy episode will be coming to your podcatcher just in time for Christmas. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss councillors Anne Stevenson, Ashley Salvador, and Michael Janz squaring off on Edmonton trivia.
Bloom, our podcast about innovation, finished off the year with a rollicking interview with Shawn Kanungo. It will be back on Jan. 5 with a retrospective on 2022 and a look-ahead to 2023.
If you have any news to share with us, be sure to send it to hello@taprootedmonton.ca. Just remember we won’t be able to publish anything about it until we return.
We hope you have a fun and restful break, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!
As was the case last summer, Taproot Edmonton is taking a publishing break. This time, we’ll be off for two weeks, from Aug. 22 to Sept. 5.
We’ll resume publication on Tuesday, Sept. 6, after the Labour Day long weekend, feeling refreshed and energized for the rest of the year. The Pulse will return to inboxes on that day, and our weekly roundups will resume their usual schedule that week.
We have put together a few things to keep you informed in the meantime:
Debbi Serafinchon has gathered a passel of upcoming events to keep you occupied through the next couple of weeks.
Faaiza Ramji and I are taking a break at Bloom, our podcast about innovation in Edmonton, but in the meantime, check out our latest episodes with Jason Suriano of TIQ Software and Jade Chiles of Ordr.
And don’t forget the fine work that Brett McKay and Dustin Cook have published this summer.
If you have any news to share with us, be sure to send it to hello@taprootedmonton.ca. Just know that we won’t be able to publish anything about it until we return.
Mack Male and Troy Pavlek have been paying close attention to city council on Edmontonians’ behalf since August 2018. It’s wonderful to see all of their hours of watching meetings and combing through agendas rewarded with this recognition, as it was when the show was nominated last year.
The Canadian Podcast Awards are voted on by other Canadian podcasters. If you happen to be one of those, you could cast your vote for Speaking Municipally in this category: “Outstanding News & Current Affairs Series.” Voting closes on Aug. 10, 2022.
Without amendments, Bill C-18 risks disproportionately benefitting large news organizations and shutting out digital startups and independent media.
When the Liberal government announced its intention to support Canada’s news industry, the reasons given were to sustain local journalism, support innovation in news, and ensure diversity in the news industry. Bill C-18, the Online News Act currently before Parliament, guarantees none of these things.
Four key changes are needed if Canada is to have the vibrant journalism citizens need for a healthy democracy.
We are a coalition of independent Canadian news publishers, pushing for amendments to C-18 to ensure the bill lives up to its promise to strengthen Canadian journalism. We represent over 100 outlets serving communities coast to coast to coast and employing over one thousand journalists. Taken together, our readers and listeners number in the many millions. Many of us have risked personal capital, fundraised from our communities, and built newsrooms from scratch to reach underserved audiences, many at the local level.
Collectively, we represent Canada’s most innovative digital news media, local news outlets, both French and English language media, and BIPOC-led news media — we are the innovative news organizations that are rebuilding the local news ecosystem. The Online News Act represents an opportunity to accelerate this innovation and progress.
We have come together to ask for basic fairness in Bill C-18.
The centrepiece of Bill C-18 is a funding model aimed at mandating large web platforms like Facebook and Google to compensate Canadian news organizations for posting content on their platforms. Unfortunately, as it is currently structured, Bill C-18 does not specifically direct funding towards supporting the critical work of journalists. The bill also lacks robust transparency mechanisms and, most importantly, it risks leaving out small, medium size and independent publishers.
Even before it was tabled, Bill C-18 has resulted in winners and losers in the news industry. There have been a series of secret, backroom deals between Big Tech and the largest newspapers in Canada, along with a handful of small- to medium-sized publishers. An unintended but likely consequence of Bill C-18 as currently structured may be to cement these inequities and this secrecy, which threatens the public’s already-frayed trust in journalism.
To be clear, we support the goal of creating a sustainable news industry. It is not too late for the current legislation to address the needs of the Canadian news media ecosystem. We want it to be amended to ensure the following:
A transparent, fair funding formula
A universal funding formula should be applied consistently to all qualifying news organizations. This funding formula should be disclosed, and the public must know which news organizations are receiving money from tech companies.
Support for journalists
Compensation from tech platforms should be based on a percentage of editorial expenditures or the number of journalists that work for an organization, inclusive of freelancers.
Inclusion
Bill C-18 may exclude dozens of important news innovators by demanding employee thresholds that news startups often don’t reach until their 3rd or 4th year of operation.
No loopholes
Bill C-18 currently includes vague and poorly-defined criteria allowing for “Exemption Orders” that could let Big Tech off the hook, benefitting a few large news organizations and shutting out hundreds of legitimate small to medium size newsrooms.
While we recognize the reality of the wider news crisis, our organizations represent rays of hope, and are proving that there is a future for a dynamic, inclusive news ecosystem in Canada.
Bill C-18 is modeled after Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code. It must not repeat the mistakes of that legislation. In Australia, an estimated 90 per cent of negotiated revenues flowed to the three largest media companies.
We encourage the government to revisit and improve Bill C-18.
As small, medium size, and independent news publishers, this new legislation is too big, and too important, to fumble. Bill C-18 will have a massive impact on the future of journalism and news in Canada.
Let’s make sure we get it right.
UNDERSIGNED
Arsenal Media
Canadaland
Canada’s National Observer
Constellation Media Society
Discourse Community Publishing
Indiegraf
Metro Media
Narcity Media
Neomedia
Overstory Media Group
Politics Today
Village Media
Alberta Today
BarrieToday
BayToday
BC Today
BradfordToday
Burnaby Beacon
Calgary Citizen
CambridgeToday
Canada’s National Observer
Capital Daily
ChrisD.ca
CollingwoodToday
ElliotLakeToday
EloraFergusToday
Enbeauce.com
EnergeticCity.ca
francoischarron.com
Fraser Valley Current
Guelph Politico
GuelphToday
Harbinger Media
IndigiNews
InnisfilToday
insideWaterloo
Journal Metro
La Converse
Mabeauce.com
Macotenord.com
Magaspesie.ca
Metro Ahuntsic-Cartierville
Metro Beauport
Metro Charlesbourg
Metro Cote des Neiges & NDG
Metro Hochelaga Maisonneuve
Metro IDS-Verdun
Metro L’Actuel
Metro L’Appel
Metro L’Autre Voix
Metro Lachine & Dorval
Metro Lasalle
Metro Le Jacques Cartier
Metro Le Plateau Mont-Royal
Metro Mercier & Anjou
Metro Montreal-Nord
Metro Ouest-de-L’ile
Metro Outremont & Mont-Royal
Metro Pointe-aux-Trembles et Montreal-est
Metro Quebec
Metro Riviere-des-Prairies
Metro Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie
Metro Saint-Laurent
Metro Saint-Leonard
Metro Sud-Ouest
Metro Ville Marie
Metro Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension
MidlandToday
Monjoliette.com
Monlatuque.com
Monmatane.com
Montemiscouata.com
Monthetford.com
Monvicto.com
MTL Blog
MuslimLink.ca
Narcity
Neomedia Chambly
Neomedia Joliette
Neomedia Laval
Neo
media Rimouski
Neomedia Rive-Nord
Neomedia Saguenay
Neomedia Sorel-Tracy
Neomedia Trois-Rivières
Neomedia Vallée du Richelieu
Neomedia Valleyfield
Neomedia Vaudreuil
New West Anchor
NewmarketToday
Northern Ontario Business
Nouvelles d’Ici
Oak Bay Local
OakvilleNews.org
OrilliaMatters
Ottawa Sports Pages
Parliament Today
Peterborough Currents
PressProgress
Queen’s Park Today
rabble.ca
Ricochet Media
SooToday
StratfordToday
Sun Peaks Independent News
Taproot Edmonton
The Breach
The Coast
The Discourse Cowichan
The Discourse Nanaimo
The Flatlander
The Green Line
The Home Pitch
The Hoser
The Independent
The Line
The Local
The Peak
The Resolve
The Ridge
The Rover
The Sprawl
The Tyee
The Westshore
The Wren
Tri-Cities Dispatch
Tribe Magazine
Vancouver Tech Journal
Vocal Fry Studios
Women’s eNews
Want to add your outlet to this letter? Fill out this form to express your interest.
This is an annual award that recognizes news organizations that "power journalism’s future through digital journalism." It was our coverage of the 2021 municipal election that caught the eye of the jury.
We are shortlisted with the CBC for its Black On the Prairies interactive series, and New Canadian Media for its collective membership model, a capacity-building project with the Canadian Association of Journalists and National NewsMedia Council.
I had the pleasure of leading the tremendous team that pulled this project off, with development by Mack Male and Meenakshi Chaudhary; data analysis by Madeleine Stout; editorial work by Emily Rendell-Watson, Jackson Spring, and Troy Pavlek; session facilitation by Chris Chang-Yen Phillips; and advice from Elise Stolte and Rob Houle.
Many thanks to everyone who participated in this project. The real reward was, of course, the knowledge that we sent thousands of Edmontonians into this election with a better understanding of what the issues were and which candidates aligned best with their values. But it’s nice to get some external validation.
We’ve been pretty heads-down in 2022, doing the work that you’ve come to expect from us, but it’s time to look up and celebrate a couple of honours for that work.
At Digital Alberta’s 2021 Ember Awards, Taproot Edmonton was named Best Digital Publication.
Last year saw huge changes at Taproot, with the launch of The Pulse, powered by a revamped website that reflects our efforts to help our community understand itself better. We were also recognized for our People’s Agenda project, in which we asked Edmontonians what issues were important to them, put those questions to the candidates, and crafted a matching engine to help voters discover who aligned with their values best.
"It was truly gratifying to be able to have such a positive impact in such an important part of our community," co-founder Mack Male said in his acceptance speech.
It was Mack’s developer chops that made all of this possible on the technical side, assisted by intern Meenakshi Chaudhary. We also pulled on his deep knowledge of city hall on the content side, alongside tremendous efforts from editorial lead Emily Rendell-Watson, data analyst Madeleine Stout, reporter Jackson Spring, listening-sessions facilitator Chris Chang-Yen Phillips, and everyone else who helped the project succeed.
Many thanks to Digital Alberta and award sponsor Communo, and congratulations to all of the amazing people and organizations recognized for their excellence.
We were also honoured to be named Independent Publisher of the Year at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards. This was on the strength of Taproot Edmonton Presents: Igniting Innovation, a six-episode podcast series hosted and produced by Emily Rendell-Watson, exploring how startups and investors have been coming together in Edmonton’s tech scene.
The work Emily did on that show laid the foundation for Taproot’s new weekly podcast, Bloom, in which Emily discusses innovation in Edmonton with co-host Faaiza Ramji. We’ll share more about this project in the coming days, but in the meantime, check out the episodes so far, and subscribe so you don’t miss the next one.
It takes resources to make award-winning journalism, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to keep making more. If you’d like to help, become a member or a sponsor, or pass this on to a friend. Such contributions make a big difference.
As we look back at 2021, we are filled with gratitude for the support that has enabled us to accomplish so much this year. Just look at what our members, sponsors, and clients have made possible:
A well-informed community
We launched The Pulse in January, fulfilling a goal to create something that would equip Edmontonians to start their day knowing what was going on. This helped us speed up our metabolism, so to speak, from the weekly cadence of each of our roundups to a daily rhythm throughout the work week. We are much more of a news organization now than we were before — we published more than 1,000 stories this year, more than the combined output of the previous four years of Taproot’s existence.
We pulled off an ambitious plan to cover the 2021 municipal election in a useful and impactful way. As we said in our recap of the People’s Agenda project, 600+ hours led to a community-informed questionnaire that revealed the values and interests of the candidates and allowed thousands of voters to learn who they aligned with best. We continue to pull on that data for our journalism, both in our city council stories and the Speaking Municipally podcast, which surpassed 100,000 downloads this year.
In 2022, we will continue to pay attention to what’s going on in our city, both generally and through the lens of the beats that form the basis of our weekly roundups: tech, food, the region, health innovation, arts, and business. We will also strengthen our ability to pay attention to what our community wants to know more about, building on the lessons of the People’s Agenda and drawing on our roots as a place that satisfies the curiosity of the people we serve.
A robust business
Ambitious plans require resources. As a bootstrapped company, the bulk of our resources come from what we can sell, whether it’s services, sponsorships, or memberships. Our efforts have been rewarded (and reinvested in the company) this year, with a boost in revenues over 2020, despite the ongoing global pandemic.
Roundup title sponsors like Uproot Food Collective, Health Cities, and Alberta Innovates make a big difference in our ability to sustainably pay attention to what’s happening in our city. So do the other sponsors and advertisers who want this kind of work to exist while also seeking to reach the smartest, most engaged people in our community (that’s you).
We have been able to access some additional funding to grow. A $23,500 grant from the Investment Readiness Program helped us develop a plan to scale our briefings service, which uses the same technology and methodology we use to pay attention on the journalism side of the operation but is attuned to the particular information needs of a client organization. We’ll be executing that plan in 2022.
A strong team
Ambitious plans require people to make them happen, and that’s what we spend the vast majority of our resources on. This year, we’ve been able to pay three full-time staff, along with a number of part-timers and freelancers.
A contribution from a limited partner at Active Impact Investments was also helpful in enabling us to work with a number of students this year.
We’ve spent a lot of time this year figuring out how to best deploy our team and equip them with what they need to accomplish the mission of informing communities about themselves. That work never ends, and you’ll see continued evolution throughout next year.
We also know we won’t achieve what we’re here to do if we burn ourselves out. That’s why we took a break from our publishing schedule for a week in August, and it’s why The Pulse and our roundups will be on pause for the last two weeks of December. We’ll be back in your inbox and on the web starting Jan. 3.
Here’s how to help us do more
Become a member: For just $10 a month or $100 a year, you can help us continue to make our journalism free for everyone to read or listen to.
Become a sponsor: We do not plaster our website with pop-ups, but we do create opportunities for businesses and organizations to reach the best people through us.
Learn more about our briefings service: If you or someone you know has an organization that needs help to stay informed and connected, let’s talk.
Spread the word: If you’re a member, you have a referral link at the bottom of every newsletter we send. If you’re not a paying member but you love what Taproot does, you can still help by letting others know.
Many thanks to everyone who has helped us get here and will continue to lift us through 2022 and beyond!