Author: Mack Male

Mack is on a mission to change the world through code and prose. An entrepreneurial journalist based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Mack is the co-founder of Taproot Publishing, a digital publishing company that helps communities understand themselves better.

Taproot is now a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization

We’re pleased to share that Taproot Publishing Inc. has officially been designated as a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization (QCJO), effective Feb. 7, 2024. This milestone reflects the growth we’ve achieved over the past few years. It also brings a tangible benefit for our members: access to the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit.

When tax time rolls around in 2025, you can now claim a credit for your Taproot membership. (Mack Male/Flickr)

What does this mean for Taproot Edmonton members?

If you’ve been an active member of Taproot Edmonton at any point in 2024 — whether by joining this year or by making one or more membership payments in 2024 — you are eligible to claim the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit on your 2024 tax return. This means:

  • Annual members can claim the full $100 membership fee.
  • Monthly members can claim the total amount they paid for their membership in 2024.

To claim this credit, simply include the amount on Line 31350 of your tax return. For more details, visit the CRA’s guide on how to claim the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit.

The Digital News Subscription Tax Credit is “a non-refundable tax credit for amounts paid by individuals to a QCJO for qualifying subscription expenses.” As a result, it does not apply to business memberships.

Why did Taproot seek QCJO designation?

Designation enables us to provide this tax benefit to our members, which has long been requested by some of those who support our work. It is a recognition of our commitment to produce high-quality, original journalism for the Edmonton region, and it highlights how far we have come since our early days.

Being a QCJO also opens up new opportunities for Taproot to access additional funding and support. For example, we intend to claim the Canadian Journalism Labour tax credit. The designation also simplifies applying for other funds, such as the funding available under the Online News Act, which the Canadian Journalism Collective is responsible for distributing.

However, we still have reservations about the QCJO program. As we noted in 2021, the system risks delegitimizing valuable journalism organizations that don’t meet its criteria for reasons unrelated to the quality of their work. While we’re gratified to offer the tax credit benefit to members, we acknowledge the broader challenges the program presents within the media landscape.

Why does Taproot now qualify as a QCJO?

Achieving QCJO status is no small feat for small, independent news organizations like ours. The eligibility criteria include several straightforward requirements, such as producing original news content, focusing on general interest topics, and operating in Canada. While we’ve long met most of these requirements, one particular criterion stood out as a significant barrier: employing two or more journalists who are not freelancers and who work at arm’s length from the organization (i.e. are not the founders).

For many startups, this requirement is difficult to achieve. Small, independent news organizations often rely on freelance journalists or part-time contributors in their early stages. Building the capacity to hire multiple full-time staff takes time, growth, and money. Yet, these small organizations are often doing vital journalism that fills critical gaps in the media ecosystem. They cover stories that larger outlets overlook, provide context and nuance for local communities, and innovate with new ways of delivering news.

This criterion kept Taproot Edmonton from being eligible for QCJO status for years. But, thanks to the support of our members, other customers, and the growth we’ve achieved together, we’ve built a strong team that not only meets the QCJO requirement, but also exemplifies the kind of impactful, community-driven journalism we set out to provide.

Next steps

We’re in the process of being added to the federal government’s list of qualifying digital news subscriptions, so you’ll soon see Taproot Edmonton officially listed there. In the meantime, members can confidently claim the credit for their 2024 membership payments.

Join by Dec. 31 to claim the credit

If you’re not yet a member, now is the perfect time to join. Become a member before Dec. 31, and not only will you help make our work free for everyone in the Edmonton region, but you will also qualify for this tax credit on your 2024 return.

The Taproot Edmonton Calendar will transform how Edmontonians discover local events

We created the Taproot Edmonton Calendar to tackle a significant challenge within our community: the fragmentation and inaccessibility of local event information.

We have heard repeatedly that people struggle to know where to look for information about upcoming events. And when they do find out about events, it is often too late to participate. That’s a problem because events are a vital part of our community, bringing people together, fostering connections, and supporting local businesses and organizations.

We set out to address this challenge by creating a high-quality, comprehensive, and easy-to-navigate calendar of events taking place across the Edmonton region.

Taproot picks at the Taproot Edmonton Calendar on May 7, 2024.

Is it really that hard to find local events?

Despite the wealth of events taking place in Edmonton, many people do indeed struggle to discover and participate in them.

Last year, we surveyed 350 people in our community and found that 65% of respondents rated the current experience of discovering events to be either poor or fair. Just 9% told us the experience was very good or excellent. Additionally, 53% of respondents said they frequently or always discover interesting events too late.

Here are just a few of the responses we received:

  • “It’s difficult finding out what is happening in the city. Sometimes I find out the day it starts, and it’s too late to attend.”
  • “When I am looking for something specific, I can find things, but when trying to browse casually it can be hard to find anything.”
  • “I usually know about big events and events in my direct community, but often miss out on finding new things.”
  • “You have to search numerous websites and be very curious and have the time to do both.”
  • “It often feels like my knowledge of upcoming events is limited by whether I see it on social media or not.”

Our research revealed several other insights, too. Aside from friends and family, the most common way that respondents told us they discover events is through email newsletters. But email newsletters have their own discovery challenges, and the more you subscribe to, the harder it is to keep up. Facebook and other social media platforms were not far behind as a source, but with those tools, you’re at the mercy of the algorithm to surface events that might interest you in a timely fashion.

When asked about existing event calendars and listings, respondents told us they are often incomplete, difficult to navigate, and lack accurate information. Many people also expressed frustration with quality, noting that many sources are “noisy” and filled with irrelevant or uninteresting events.

How does the Taproot Edmonton Calendar fix this?

Our goal is for the Taproot Edmonton Calendar to be that single, curated, and accessible service that helps people discover and participate in local events.

We took an important step toward that goal by launching the calendar in beta in December 2023. We focused on building a solid foundation with a clean, user-friendly design, and some initial tools for categorizing and filtering events. The calendar builds upon our existing web platform to help ensure it is accessible and responsive, which means it works well on any device.

Here are a few of the features we’ve built into the calendar so far:

  • Rich event details: Every listing includes the essential information you need to know, such as the date, time, location, a brief description, and a link to learn more. Where possible we also include images, links to tickets and livestreams, pricing information, and more.
  • Categories and tags: We established nine top-level categories to help you find events that match your interests. We’ve also added tags to help you filter by more specific topics.
  • Related events: Most event listings also include a list of related events, so you can easily discover other events that might interest you.
  • Taproot picks: Our team curates a list of events we think are particularly interesting or relevant. These Taproot picks are featured prominently on the calendar.
  • Basic filtering: You can filter events by category, date range (such as “today” or “next week”), city, and whether the event is in-person or online. You can also see all events taking place at a specific location, or organized by a specific organization.
  • Flag for review: Despite our best efforts, we know that mistakes happen. If you spot an error or have a concern about an event listing, you can flag it for review by our team.
  • Event submission: We’ve made it easy for event organizers to submit their events to the calendar. All we need is a URL and our system and team do the rest. It’s free, quick, and easy.

We have lots of ideas for how to improve the calendar further. Based on feedback from early adopters, we’re already working on new layout options, search, more robust filtering, and personalization features, among other things.

One of the first improvements we made this year was to integrate the Taproot Edmonton Calendar into The Pulse and our weekly roundups. Now you can find a curated selection of upcoming events in each newsletter, and you can click through to the calendar to see more.

But most of our effort over the past few months has been focused on growing the number of events in the calendar. We now have thousands of events listed, and we’re adding more every day. About 20% to 25% of our listings are for events that will take place at least 30 days from now, to help you plan ahead.

Why Taproot?

We believe Taproot is uniquely well-positioned to tackle this challenge. Our mission to help people understand their community better perfectly aligns with the goal of the calendar. Over the past few years, we have developed sophisticated systems and processes to support the curation of local information, including events. And we have a growing team of talented individuals who are passionate about informing and connecting Edmontonians, including Debbi Serafinchon who is our point person for the calendar.

But perhaps most importantly, this is a challenge that we have experienced ourselves. We know how frustrating it can be to miss out on an event because you didn’t hear about it in time, and we know how hard it can be to find events that match your interests.

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham wrote last year that “if you’re making something for people, make sure it’s something they actually want.” The best way to do that? “Make something you yourself want,” he wrote.

That’s what we’re doing. We’re building the Taproot Edmonton Calendar because it’s something we want, and we believe it’s something our community wants too (and our research backs that up).

We’re excited by the opportunity to boost our impact as part of the connective tissue that makes the city work. The calendar reflects our ongoing commitment to not only inform the city but to be an active participant in its story, weaving together the many threads that make Edmonton a great place to live, work, and play.

How can I help?

We encourage you to check out the Taproot Edmonton Calendar and start using it to discover local events. If you like what you see, please help us spread the word by sharing the calendar with your friends and family.

We are committed to keeping the calendar free for everyone to use, but there are real costs associated with building and maintaining it. If you’re in a position to support our work, we would love to have you as a Taproot Edmonton member. Your membership helps fund the calendar and our broader mission of supporting local journalism in Edmonton.

If you’re an event organizer, we encourage you to submit your events to the calendar. It’s free, quick, and easy, and it helps ensure that your event reaches a broader audience.

If you’re a business or organization that wants to work with us to support the calendar, we would love to hear from you. We offer a range of sponsorship opportunities that can help you increase your visibility while supporting a vital community resource. Please reach out to us to discuss how we can collaborate to keep Edmonton vibrant and well-informed.

Lastly, we welcome your feedback and ideas for how we can make the calendar even better. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your thoughts.

Let’s Find Out joins Taproot Edmonton

Let’s Find Out, the award-winning podcast that explores Edmonton’s history through listener questions, is joining Taproot Edmonton!

Let’s Find Out is hosted by Chris Chang-Yen Phillips, who served as Edmonton’s fourth historian laureate, and is co-produced by his longtime collaborator Trevor Chow-Fraser. Since it launched in 2016, the show has tackled a wide range of topics across its 63 (and counting!) episodes. For example, Episode 21 looked at green onion cakes, Episode 42 explored the icons of Ritchie, and Episode 60 — which featured a question from Taproot co-founder Karen Unland — looked at how garbage dumps in the river valley were transformed into parks.

The April episode of the monthly show answers a question about how to make parks more fun in the winter, which creates an opportunity to consider the decade-old Winter City Edmonton initiative.

Let’s Find Out and Taproot Edmonton collaborated on a live event in 2019. (Mack Male/Flickr)

We at Taproot have been fans of Let’s Find Out for a long time. We sponsored the show’s 2019 season, which explored how nature shapes us, and we collaborated on a live event — complete with a story garden! — to kick it off.

The end of the Alberta Podcast Network presented an opportunity for us to explore a deeper collaboration. The curiosity-driven approach of Let’s Find Out is a perfect fit for Taproot, and we’re thrilled to be able to support Chris and Trevor as they continue to explore Edmonton’s history.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll integrate Let’s Find Out more closely into our operations. Fans of the show can expect more great episodes, and we are excited to bring the stories of Let’s Find Out to a wider audience via our website and The Pulse.

Welcome to Taproot, Let’s Find out!

Meet Taproot Edmonton’s new reporter

We’re thrilled to introduce you to Colin Gallant, the latest addition to Taproot Edmonton’s growing editorial team.

Colin joins Taproot as a reporter to help us publish original stories about what’s going on in our city. He was previously an editor at Avenue magazine in Calgary, served as co-editor-in-chief at The Calgary Journal, and worked at BeatRoute magazine. Colin studied journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

"My favourite thing about being a journalist is that it gives you permission — nay, encouragement! — to be as nosy as you like," Colin says. "I’m half-kidding, but I am glad that being a Taproot reporter gives me a licence to become an expert on all things Edmonton."

Colin Gallant is Taproot Edmonton’s newest reporter. (Mack Male)

Colin is off to a great start on that, filing stories about the end of Edmonton’s NextGen, how local startup Maggie aims to empower women, and the impact of the provincial budget on municipalities.

Originally from Nova Scotia, Colin has called both Calgary and Edmonton home. He enjoys the off-leash areas of Mill Creek Ravine with his two dogs, cycles as his preferred mode of transportation (he describes himself as a certified NUMTOT), and is a big fan of the chicken from Seoul Fried Chicken.

"I love that Edmonton has several pyramids," he adds.

Hear more about Colin and his thoughts on public art in Episode 212 of Speaking Municipally.

Welcome to the team, Colin!

Declaring our roundup experiment a success

We’re declaring the experiment we started last month a success. Now when you open a roundup, you’ll find a message from a member of our team pulling some threads together in the Taproot way — with curiosity and desire to understand our community better.

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. Here’s a sample of the things we heard:

  • "I love the new roundup format."
  • "I really like the new opening perspective from the editor."
  • "I’m writing to tell you I’m enjoying the new format of the roundup. I think it’s a great addition."

We’re grateful for the evidence that this approach is working!

Our previous format was to include a story at the top of the roundup, which meant there was duplication between the roundups and The Pulse. 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. The new format makes that more likely.

“I like to start my notes to you as if we’re in the middle of a conversation,” Meg Ryan’s character says in You’ve Got Mail.

We think the new format makes the roundups themselves more engaging. Instead of dropping you right into a story, we greet you in a more conversational way without any unnecessary preamble (as we always strive to save you time). I’m reminded of Meg Ryan’s character in You’ve Got Mail, who writes to Tom Hanks’s character, "I like to start my notes to you as if we’re in the middle of a conversation."

One of the things we’ve learned through the experiment is that this format is a useful way for us to connect the dots. While each edition of a roundup is informative on its own, paying attention to a topic over time yields greater benefits. We notice patterns, connections, and trends that we can share, and the new format is a good way to do that.

What’s next?

We’ll still write stories about our roundup topics even with the new format in place, and you’ll still find them curated into items for the roundups they fit best. Those stories will also make it into The Pulse. But the new format provides us with some operational flexibility that we’re excited to take full advantage of.

For instance, in The Pulse you’ll increasingly find stories like our look at the community sandbox program, which doesn’t exactly fit one of the roundup beats. It also means we can publish stories like today’s about Future Fields securing US$11.2 million in funding whenever it makes sense to do so, not just because it fits a particular day’s roundup.

We’re working on additional improvements to the roundups, The Pulse, and our website, and we’ll have more to share on that soon. If you have any feedback on what would make the reader experience even better, please let us know!

And 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.

Building a thriving team at Taproot

This month we’re wrapping up our participation in the 2022 GNI Startups Lab on Building and Managing a Team, hosted by LION Publishers in partnership with Google News Initiative. We’re thankful to have been among the 16 publishers selected for the program that provided training, coaching, and funding.

For the past eight weeks or so we have learned about many aspects of building and managing a team. Planning for growth, hiring, onboarding, employment policies, management, and addressing and avoiding burnout were all among the topics covered. While much of the information was familiar to us given the stage we’re at, we also took away several new ideas and insights that we have already been applying. For example, we have adopted the use of user manuals, a helpful articulation of how someone likes to work and collaborate with other people. Participating in the program also caused us to follow-through on some work already underway, such as improving our employee handbook and onboarding process.

We enjoyed meeting with and learning from the other publishers that participated in the program. Most of all, we are grateful for the chance to work with our coach, Bene Cipolla. As the former editor-in-chief and publisher of Chalkbeat, we knew she’d have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share. Every week we looked forward to hearing her advice and guidance on the issues we were tackling. Bene’s engagement, enthusiasm, and expertise made the program an impactful and enjoyable experience for us.

During our summer break we identified growing our team as a key priority, so the timing of the program was great. We hear regularly from the communities we serve that our work is having a positive impact, whether you start your day with The Pulse, listen to one of our podcasts while doing the laundry, or you receive one of our briefings through your employer. With a thriving team, we can continue to grow and improve our ability to help communities understand themselves better.

At Taproot, we’re curious, courageous, and we care. If you’re interested in working with us, we’d love to hear from you! Please fill out our simple intake form or reach out to me directly via LinkedIn.

Taproot Edmonton reflects on the weekend everything changed

This weekend marks the anniversary of when everything changed. In addition to that look back, Taproot Edmonton has been documenting milestones throughout the pandemic on our COVID-19 in Edmonton timeline.

In this post, the Taproot Edmonton team reflects on the weekend that everything changed.

Shared by Coun. Aaron Paquette on March 17, 2020 (Twitter)

Emily:

It’s hard to believe it has been one year, and at the same time, it feels like it’s been much longer. While I don’t remember the particular details of the day everything changed in Edmonton, numerous moments over the past year stand out. My life certainly looks very different today than it did in March 2020. I haven’t seen my family, who live across the country, in a year and a half. I’ve talked to Canadians stranded all over the world as borders shut down, interviewed world-class scientists and doctors as they tirelessly worked on a vaccine and warned of caution fatigue, and learned how to produce stories from home, with an inquisitive dog at my side ready to "say hello" mid-interview.

I’m not sure our world, and Edmonton, will ever be the same again. While I would like to one day say goodbye to the copious amounts of hand sanitizer and my collection of leopard and floral face masks, I won’t be as willing to give up the opportunities to reconnect with friends and family, and the slower pace the pandemic has forced us to live by at times. Here’s to hoping we’ll be able to gather as a community like we used to again soon. Take care and stay healthy.

Jackson:

That whole semester of university, I was helping publish a weekly newspaper as a class project. On March 11, the reporters had all of their stories lined up for the next issue: a typical spread of campus issues, restaurant reviews, and problems with the city’s snow clearing efforts. The morning of March 12, the professor walked into class and said "cancel everything — we’re doing a special issue on this virus instead." The university cancelled in-person classes on March 13, and I haven’t been in a classroom since.

Karen:

I remember the last time I shook someone’s hand. I hesitated. He assured me he had washed his hands. I relented. I haven’t done it since.

That was on March 12, 2020, which feels to me like the last normal day, though I guess it wasn’t that normal. The World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a pandemic the day before, and that night, I emailed the organizer of a conference I was speaking at to say I understood if she had to cancel. Things were definitely starting to feel strange.

But I went to work as usual at Unit B on March 12. I had meetings, shook hands, rode the bus home, did the regular things. And then things stopped being usual.

An in-person meeting on March 13 became a virtual one. The iMedia conference was indeed postponed. Instead, I called in to Don’t Call Me a Guru. My kids went to school at their school buildings for the last time; as of March 15, they were home.

Everyone who has lived through the last year has a story like this. You should write yours down, too. The historians of the future will thank you.

Mack:

COVID-19 was all over the news that week, but it is Friday, March 13, 2020 that sticks out in my mind as the inflection point. I covered the emergency city council meeting and news conference that day and it became crystal clear that things were about to change in a big way.

My family had gone to West Edmonton Mall the weekend before. We saw the sea lions, explored the kids’ section of the bookstore, and stopped for coffee. The last event I went to, on Tuesday, March 10, was the kickoff for Downtown Dining Week at the Art Gallery of Alberta. Those normal, indoor experiences feel like a lifetime ago now.

Over the course of that week, some of my coffee meetings became virtual while others were cancelled. In every conversation, there was uncertainty, especially after the pandemic was declared and the NHL season was "paused."

The weekend was spent at home, a small preview of the weeks and months to come with daycares also closed as of March 15.

Now a year later, with vaccines rolling out, it feels like we’re at another turning point. A hopeful one this time.

Taproot does some more pruning

Taproot Edmonton is publishing the final edition of the Media Roundup on Feb. 15. From time-to-time you’ll still find coverage of media in Edmonton in The Pulse and on our website.

The evolution of the Media Roundup

We launched the Media Roundup in July 2018 to cover media, public relations, and communications in Edmonton.

I had been writing a blog series called Media Monday Edmonton since early 2011 and it made sense to bring that into Taproot when we started developing our roundups. We expanded the purview of the roundup and added events and job opportunities.

In June 2019, Linda Hoang came on board to take over the Media Roundup and she did a great job. But with her own growing online empire, Linda decided to step away and wrote her final edition last month.

Photo by Mark Tegethoff on Unsplash

Why are we making this change?

Linda’s departure accelerated discussions we were already having about how the Media Roundup fits into what we’re building with Taproot Edmonton.

We continue to strive for "less but better" and just as with the end of the Council Roundup, we think this change will help us focus on other efforts, such as The Pulse.

There’s a popular quote in writing circles that "you must kill your darlings." Originally attributed to William Faulkner and popularized by Stephen King, the phrase refers to characters, paragraphs, chapters, or other bits of writing that we’re fond of and want to keep, even if they get in the way of serving the reader.

It has been ten years since I posted the first entry in Media Monday Edmonton. Paying attention to and writing about the media so regularly definitely factored into the creation of Taproot. I’m grateful for that, and I’m ready to let it go.

What’s next?

As appropriate, we’ll include media and communications-related items in The Pulse, the Arts Roundup, Business Roundup, and other publications so please continue to send us your suggestions and tips.

We are always open to opportunities to better serve our community and welcome your feedback.

And if you haven’t already done so, sign up to get The Pulse for free!

The Council Roundup is moving to The Pulse

Taproot Edmonton is publishing the final edition of the Council Roundup on Jan. 22 as we transition our coverage of the discussions and decisions happening at city hall to The Pulse and our new website. This means you’ll see more coverage of municipal politics from Taproot, and on a more frequent basis.

The evolution of the Council Roundup

We launched the Council Roundup in August 2018. For most of its existence, the roundup included a small summary of every agenda item. While this was a significant reduction from the hundreds of pages of reports that are published each week, it still resulted in a rather lengthy email.

When the pandemic hit last year, council’s schedule was upended, and we changed the Council Roundup accordingly. It became more like our other roundups, with some original writing at the top followed by curated headlines. And instead of including a summary of every agenda item, we included summaries of selected agenda items.

What hasn’t changed is our goal of providing readers with an overview of the items coming up at council and the decisions that were recently made. That’s a public service we’re committed to continuing.

What’s changing?

You’ll now find our coverage of municipal politics every weekday in The Pulse. That includes original reporting, curated headlines, and upcoming agenda items. For example:

We think this is a better way to inform you about municipal politics while also streamlining the efforts of our editorial team.

Our coverage of city hall is moving from the Council Roundup to The Pulse.

Why are we making this change?

One of our core principles at Taproot is that we edit. Of course we edit everything we publish, but this principle extends far beyond our journalism. We strive to make "less but better" part of all of our daily activities, and we give ourselves permission to stop trying to do it all.

With the launch of The Pulse, we evaluated everything else we’re doing and came to the conclusion that we could best achieve the objectives of the Council Roundup and of The Pulse by doing some consolidation.

What about the People’s Agenda?

For those who receive the Council Roundup to receive updates on our People’s Agenda project, we’ll be offering a monthly newsletter instead. It will cover what we’ve done in our quest to provide more citizen-focused coverage of the 2021 civic election, what we’re doing next, and how you can help us hear from more people.

What’s next?

We’ll continue to edit while also being open to opportunities to better serve our community, especially when it comes to understanding our local government and its activities. As always, we welcome and encourage your feedback.

If you haven’t already done so, sign up to get The Pulse for free!

Introducing The Pulse from Taproot Edmonton

We’re excited to introduce The Pulse, a daily news briefing that informs you about what’s going on in Edmonton. It launches on Monday, Jan. 18, and you can sign up now to get it for free.

What is The Pulse?

The Pulse is a one-stop shop for what you need to know before getting on with your day. Every weekday morning, we’ll share original stories from our team, a curated selection of local news from around the web, and other local items of interest that will hopefully provide you with a small dose of daily delight.

The Pulse is free, and it will contain minimal, locally focused advertisements to help us keep it that way. You can also support our work by becoming a member.

To start, we’ll deliver The Pulse via an email newsletter, on the web, and on social media. We know that everyone’s routine is different, and while email works well for many people, it may not for others. We want to meet you wherever you are in order to serve you well. To that end, we will continue to evaluate additional ways to make The Pulse available.

Why is Taproot launching The Pulse?

As readers, we subscribe to some fantastic daily newsletters from media companies elsewhere in the world, such as The Morning Newsletter from The New York Times, Morning Brew, and Axios AM. These and other similar newsletters are a great way to get oriented and provide useful context for the day ahead.

We wanted to subscribe to a local newsletter, too, something focused on our city, but what we were looking for just didn’t exist. Now it does.

Taproot Edmonton is well-positioned to make this happen. Our team pays close attention to Edmonton. We’re constantly gathering information about our city, evaluating those updates, adding context, and sharing them with readers. This effort has helped us keep Edmontonians informed through our roundups as well as an increasing number of original articles. Now it’ll help us produce The Pulse.

What benefits does The Pulse provide?

In December, we piloted The Pulse for two weeks with a few hundred of our existing email subscribers. That gave us an opportunity to gather feedback from readers on what elements of the briefing they liked best, as well as to test and refine the editorial process needed to produce a new edition every day.

We then took some time before the holidays to evaluate all the feedback and data we had collected. We were very encouraged by the response, with a majority of survey respondents indicating they liked The Pulse and wanted something like it to continue. In fact, 83% of respondents told us that The Pulse informed them about things they care about.

Our goal is for The Pulse to inform you, save you time, connect you to Edmonton, and delight you, each and every day.

We’ve made some adjustments since the pilot, and we’ll continue to iterate over the weeks and months ahead. We welcome your feedback!

Sign up to get The Pulse for free

We are launching The Pulse on Monday, Jan. 18, and we’d love for you to sign up to receive it in your email inbox every weekday. It’s free!