The Taproot Mini brings a bit of fun to The Pulse

Taproot now has its own crossword puzzle, bringing a daily dose of delight to The Pulse.

As is the case with everything Taproot publishes, the puzzle is locally sourced. We’re excited to be working with Brandon Cathcart, a crossword constructor who also happens to be a reader of Taproot’s weekday newsletter about what’s going on in Edmonton.

Crossword constructor Brandon Cathcart is the mind behind The Taproot Mini.

“One day, I was like, ‘I think this could use a mini crossword,’” Brandon said of The Pulse. “I think I would enjoy taking a little break after my news updates.”

Now, Brandon was perhaps primed to think this way. He caught the bug for doing newspaper crosswords back when free commuter dailies like Metro were a thing, and he started making his own in high school, about 15 years ago.

But it’s not just Brandon who has seen this opportunity. Crosswords were born in newspapers more than a century ago, and the great success of New York Times Games has persuaded many outlets to revive the tradition of offering diversions alongside the news.

This also aligns with Brandon’s larger project. He recently started YEGwords, which sends a weekly email newsletter with an 11×11 crossword (more challenging than The Taproot Mini), along with commentary for the word nerds among us. He also distributes paper copies of YEGwords puzzles in selected coffee shops and bookstores.

“I want to put something fun into the world that people can find and enjoy,” he said.

It’s a worthy mission. And for the next month, Taproot will be one of those places where Brandon sprinkles some fun. Every day in The Pulse, you’ll see a mini-crossword made just for Taproot readers, always with a few Edmonton-themed clues. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think you’ll enjoy them, regardless of your puzzling prowess.

“One of the things that I really try to do with my crosswords is make them accessible for people who aren’t familiar with crosswords,” he said, “while still making them fun for people who do.”

Give them a try and let us know what you think! If you don’t already get The Pulse, you can sign up here. We’d love your feedback on the Mini at hello@taprootedmonton.ca.

Taproot Edmonton’s social media posts are now automated

Social media can be a valuable tool, but we’ve realized it’s not essential to our mission to help you understand what’s happening in Edmonton and the surrounding region. After reviewing our data and reflecting on the value we provide, we’ve made an important change to how we use social media: Our posts are now automated.

Taproot is now automatically posting stories and newsletters to five social media platforms, including LinkedIn.

Until the end of 2024, we handcrafted each post for our social media channels. But when we examined the results, it became clear that social media wasn’t driving significant traffic to our website or increasing sign-ups. Investing more time to boost engagement would have taken us away from what we do best — delivering reliable, focused intelligence about our community.

In fact, many of you rely on our work precisely because it allows you to avoid spending excessive time on social media. Our weekday newsletter, The Pulse, and our weekly roundups provide everything you need to stay informed and connected, without endless scrolling.

As Taproot Edmonton member Julie B. says: “I love knowing what’s going on in my city and what’s the latest news. Where else can one get all this info in a timely manner complete with links for more in-depth information when you want it? I’m very grateful for this publication!”

In addition, as a Canadian news publication, we currently face restrictions on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. And with many organizations shifting their primary social presence to platforms where we’re restricted or not active, manually posting became even less aligned with our goals.

To keep informing those who use social media as an alert system, we’ve automated posts to announce new content across several platforms, including LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. While our posts will still provide helpful alerts, we won’t be actively monitoring these channels for responses. From time to time, we may still manually post important updates or special content, but this won’t be the norm.

However, many members of the Taproot Edmonton team are active on social media and happy to engage. If you’d like to connect or reach out, you can find our team on LinkedIn.

Thank you for following along and supporting Taproot. We’re committed to keeping you informed, connected, and inspired while saving you time.

It’s time to share what’s on your election agenda

Curiosity is at the heart of everything Taproot does, and covering a municipal election is no different. Our approach is not to tell you what we think, nor is it to concentrate on what the candidates promise. We begin by asking what you care about and building our work around that in the months leading up to voting day on Oct. 20.

We started gathering input during our housing event in November 2024 — now we’re widening the aperture with a bigger question about what’s on your mind heading into the 2025 municipal election. (Flickr/Mack Male)

If you were reading Taproot in 2021, you may remember this approach as the People’s Agenda. We called it that because we drew inspiration from Jay Rosen’s concept of the Citizens Agenda. This method gives journalists a way to ground their work in the issues voters care about, rather than engaging in the “horse race” coverage that is more interested in who’s leading in the polls and other tendencies that reduce politics to a kind of sport.

When we embarked on that project during the last election campaign, we weren’t sure what we would end up with. We just knew we wanted to listen to the people and equip them to make informed decisions. In the end, we figured out a way to be useful to thousands of voters, and we’re ready to do it again, in a bigger and better way, employing the lessons of 2021.

What do we want to know?

Here’s this election’s kickoff question: What issues do you care about as you consider who to vote for in the 2025 municipal election, and why?. It’s an open-ended question meant to capture not only what’s on your mind but also what you want to hear about from the candidates for mayor and council as they compete for your vote. You might want to keep in mind the kinds of issues that are under municipal jurisdiction as opposed to provincial or federal — the City of Spruce Grove has a handy guide — but don’t get too tangled up in that. Speak from your heart.

This year, we are also inviting (but not requiring) you to share the first three characters in your postal code. That’s so we can see if there are any discernible patterns in what matters to people in particular wards in Edmonton or specific municipalities in the metro region.

What will we do with the answers?

The responses will be one of the most important inputs for the Taproot Survey, which we will distribute to candidates so they can indicate where they stand on the issues that are important to you. In 2021, we asked 30 multiple-choice questions reflecting the topics raised in our information-gathering. Some were very specific, such as “Do you think city council should have approved the Epcor’s E.L. Smith Solar Farm?” Others were more general, such as “How much should the city spend to help local business recover from the pandemic?”

Some candidates did not like the multiple-choice format, and to be sure, political questions tend to have nuances that are difficult to capture in four or five standardized responses. But this format makes it possible to let voters take the same survey and find out which candidates they align with. This matching engine turned out to be a powerful way to equip voters with actionable information. It was also a great (and free) way for candidates to make their positions known and find their voters, in a way that can’t be touched by how much money they have raised. We intend to make the matching engine available again.

In 2021, we also synthesized the responses to the initial question into eight sub-questions, such as “Will our taxes be well-spent?” or “Will we act on climate change?” Each of these was the inspiration for an online listening session that yielded Taproot stories and more information to inform the questions in our candidate survey. We have something similar in mind for this campaign as well.

Making sense of all of the information we gathered in 2021 was a challenge given the tools at our disposal. Taproot’s reach has grown significantly since then, and we expect the number of answers we gather will be an order of magnitude greater than what we managed last time. Luckily, we can now harness the power of generative AI to sift through the pile of data and help us understand what’s on people’s minds. No identifying information will be used for this analysis, and humans will oversee every step. But we’re excited to see how quickly we’ll be able to gain understanding with this help. We may also use AI to help us craft the wording of the multiple-choice questions to ensure the answers provide as much clarity on a candidate’s stance as possible.

How are we involving community partners?

This work derives some of its authority from the depth and breadth of the information we gather. We want to hear not only from Taproot’s community but also from those who are outside our orbit, to ensure a large, diverse pool of knowledge. We’ll be working with community partners to get our initial question out to their communities. We’ll also be asking them to encourage candidates to answer the survey and to distribute our matching engine when it’s ready for voters to use.

To help fund the significant amount of work that this entire election project will entail, we will be offering partners the opportunity to pay for access to some of the data we gather. This data will be anonymized and in line with our privacy policy. These paying partners will not have any say over the questions we ask or the way we cover the election; they will simply have access to deeper information than that which we will display to the public. These partners will be listed on Taproot’s election site.

What happens next?

Here’s the timeline we have in mind:

March to May: Gather answers to the election question through Taproot’s channels and with the help of community partners;
May and June: Hold listening sessions to dive deeper into some of the issues surfaced;
July and August: Formulate the candidate survey;
August and September: Distribute the survey to all declared candidates;
Sept. 22 to Oct. 20: Distribute the matching engine through Taproot’s channels and community partners;
Oct. 20: Election Day

Throughout this period, Taproot’s editorial team will continue to publish election-related stories, leaning towards the kind of explanatory work they did as part of the Housing Complex project. Story ideas and pitches can be sent to hello@taprootedmonton.ca. We’d also like to list election forums and related events in the Taproot Edmonton Calendar. Here’s the submission page.

Our election site will have a full listing of every candidate for mayor, councillor, public school trustee, or Catholic school trustee in Edmonton, with links to their websites. We may do the same for candidates in some of the municipalities in the metro region — we’re looking into how much more complexity that may introduce, and will be guided in part by the amount of participation we see from voters in the region.

Given the province’s decision to ban automated vote tabulators, we expect we won’t be able to provide the same kind of real-time results dashboard we’ve made available in previous elections. But we will display the results and the stances of the winning candidates once we know them.

How can you help?

The first thing to do is to answer the question. Once again, here it is: What issues do you care about as you consider who to vote for in the 2025 municipal election, and why?.

Please spread that link to friends, family, and colleagues. The more people we hear from, the better. If you are part of an organization that would like to help us distribute the question, please get in touch with Mack at mack@taprootpublishing.ca.

You’ll notice the question page invites you to opt in to receive email from us, as a subscriber to Taproot in general and/or to receive alerts about the readiness of the matching engine and other election tools. This is optional, and your email address will not be correlated in any way with your answers. We do hope you’ll consider signing up if you’re not already on Taproot’s mailing list.

Finally, as you can well imagine, it’s expensive to do this kind of work. Becoming a paying member of Taproot, either as an individual or as an organization, provides us with vital resources to pay the people who pay attention to the Edmonton region, not only at election time but year-round.

How wellness checks help Taproot thrive

At Taproot, we pride ourselves on creating a workplace where people feel valued, supported, and empowered to do their best work. As we chart a new future for local news, we are committed to leaving behind the often problematic culture of traditional newsrooms. One of the practices that has helped us do this is the wellness check, a simple but powerful way to start every meeting.

What is a wellness check?

Our wellness check asks, “How are you feeling today?” Participants select one of four states: Struggling, Surviving, Thriving, or Excelling. Each state includes descriptors to help pinpoint where someone is — whether they’re feeling low energy and unproductive or inspired and in a state of flow.

We didn’t invent the idea of a wellness or mental health check-in, and neither did ATB X, the accelerator program where we first encountered this practice in 2019. But we embraced it, made it our own, and adapted it to fit Taproot’s needs. Over time, it has become a cornerstone of how we connect as a team.

Why it matters

It can be easy to start a meeting with a generic “How’s everyone doing?” and hear the automatic “I’m fine” response. But “fine” doesn’t give us any useful information. The wellness check allows us to go deeper and create a space where people feel safe sharing how they’re really doing. For instance:

If someone is thriving or excelling, we know they may have the energy to tackle big challenges.
If someone is struggling or surviving, we can check in further, adjust expectations, and provide support.

One of the key reasons this works is modeling. Karen, my co-founder, and I openly share how we’re feeling — even if we’re struggling. By doing so, we signal that it’s OK to be honest, and that vulnerability is met with care, not judgment.

Our team sometimes gets creative with their responses. We often hear someone is “surthriving” or “thricelling” when they feel like they’re a little in between states on the wellness check. It’s a lighthearted way to acknowledge that emotions aren’t always clear-cut, and it keeps the process engaging and authentic.

What happens next?

When someone shares that they’re struggling, the immediate reaction is not to push forward with the agenda but to pause. We might ask, “Do you want to share more about that?” or offer time for a private conversation. It’s rare for someone to reveal they’re struggling in a group setting, but when they do, we take it seriously.

On the other hand, the wellness check also gives us opportunities to celebrate when someone is excelling or thriving. It helps us recognize not just the challenges but also the wins, big and small.

A continuous work in progress

This is actually the second iteration of our wellness check. We made changes based on our experiences and feedback from the team, and the current version has proven to be the most effective so far. We’re still exploring how to make the most of the wellness check. For example, we’d love to track trends over time to identify patterns, like how the seasons or external factors might affect the team’s energy. But for now, it’s enough to know that we’re fostering a culture of care.

When we reviewed our OKRs for 2024 and reflected on how effectively we supported and empowered our team, the feedback we heard from them was very encouraging and positive. They said they do feel supported, and we believe the wellness check is a key reason behind that.

To hear more about how this practice supports our mission and workplace culture, check out Karen’s interview on the Executive Wins podcast where she shares insights into why we adopted the wellness check and how it has helped our team thrive. You can also watch the interview below:

Supporting our mission

Taproot Edmonton exists to provide the most reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region. We inform, connect, and inspire our community to thrive. The wellness check is one of the tools we use to make that possible. By creating a supportive, resilient team, we’re better equipped to deliver on our mission and ensure that Taproot continues to be a trusted source of information.

Sharing the practice

If this resonates with you, we encourage you to adopt and adapt the wellness check for your own team. It’s a flexible tool that can fit a variety of workplaces, and it’s one small but meaningful step toward building a healthier, more connected workplace culture. We’d love to hear how you make it your own — feel free to reach out to us and share your experience.

Fostering a thriving community starts with fostering a thriving team. At Taproot, we’re committed to both, and the wellness check helps us live that commitment every day.

How Taproot Edmonton made an impact in 2024

Did you know Taproot Edmonton sent 1.3 million emails in 2024? That’s a lot of informing, connecting, and inspiring people with reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region. Here’s more on what our team has been able to accomplish this year with the support of readers, members, sponsors, advertisers, and other partners.

Informing with reliable intelligence

Every day, our team delivers useful, timely information that keeps you informed and engaged. From in-depth coverage of local news to bite-sized updates in The Pulse, readers rely on us for an accurate snapshot of what’s happening in Edmonton. “I start every morning reading The Pulse,” shares reader Jodi M. “I am always delighted by the news that it contains. By reading it, I feel better informed and more a part of the Edmonton community.”

Our emails saw an impressive 56.4% open rate and 8.3% click rate, showing that readers value the information we provide. We also saw a 7.3% jump in email subscribers and a 28.5% increase in paying members.

Saving you time

Since our inception, our approach has been to pay close attention to what’s happening so you don’t have to. In 2024, we curated more than 2,800 headlines in The Pulse alone, offering concise summaries and easy access to the full stories.

“I love the brief summaries with lots of links, enabling me to get the big picture and dive deeper when I want to,” says member Natalia K.

Connecting the community

We’re proud to connect Edmontonians to the many things happening in the community. In 2024, our team added more than 9,200 events to the Taproot Edmonton Calendar, making it a vital resource for those looking for things to do. “It’s easy to start my day reading an item or two from The Pulse or roundups and feel more connected to what’s going on and to the city itself,” says Thiago V., who recently moved to Edmonton. “The Calendar has been the cherry on top for me, as it always excites me when I find something cool happening in the city that I can go check out over the weekend.”

We continued to track Edmonton’s ever-changing landscape through our weekly roundups, which provide essential updates across a variety of sectors. Whether it’s the latest in local food, tech, arts, or business, the roundups deliver fresh, relevant information to help you stay connected. This year, for example, our Food Roundup highlighted nearly 600 restaurant openings.

Our podcast, Speaking Municipally, also continues to connect listeners to the conversations shaping the city. In 2024, we had nearly 50,000 downloads, with listeners tuning in to important discussions about housing, public transit, zoning, and more. We’re grateful to the dozen-plus guests who joined us this year, contributing valuable insights. “I listen to Speaking Municipally diligently and it has been an important part of my weekly routine in staying up to date about matters related to the city,” says listener and member Giselle G.

Inspiring through stories

The diversity of topics that resonated most with readers this year is particularly striking. Here are the top five most-read stories of 2024 on our website:

These stories don’t just inform — they spark curiosity and invite further exploration. And that’s just the tops of the waves. In 2024, we wrote about 4,000 unique entities, showcasing the depth and variety of Edmonton’s people, businesses, and initiatives.

Helping you take action

At Taproot Edmonton, we’re committed to providing actionable intelligence that helps you make informed decisions. In 2024, we summarized and linked to 493 different city council reports. We also highlighted 175 unique public engagement opportunities, giving readers the chance to contribute their voices to key issues. “Taproot has the pulse on current events and community engagement with promoting active citizenship in the forefront,” says reader Renée C. “Bringing awareness to the greater community amidst the noise is difficult, and Taproot is a credible and reliable source.”

We also continued to provide unique insights with our history pieces, publishing 47 “moment in history” articles that not only inform but also bring a bit of delight. Whether revisiting local milestones or uncovering lesser-known aspects of Edmonton’s past, these pieces have become a beloved part of The Pulse. “I love starting my day with The Pulse,” member Erin J. shares. “It’s a great way to feel connected to what’s happening across the city. It regularly contains a few things I already know and care about and a few things that are new to me and I become inspired to learn more.”

Join us in building an informed community

We are grateful for the support of everyone who has helped make this work possible. If you’d like to help us continue to inform, connect, and inspire people in the Edmonton region, please consider becoming a member.

Here’s to another year of growth and impact in 2025!

Taproot harvests curiosity about housing at well-attended event

Roughly 18 months ago, Taproot started work on a project to examine the complexity of Edmonton’s housing ecosystem. The idea was to speak to multiple people within the system to identify some of the entanglements we can feel within it. Consider someone realizing their beneficial location on housing comes partly at the expense of others, or someone living with those negative consequences, or someone living without stable housing at all.

Writer and researcher Eric Rice, photographer Jordon Hon, and reporter Stephanie Swensrude discussed Taproot’s Housing Complex series with moderator Karen Unland in front of a crowd of about 70 people at CKUA on Nov. 27. (Mack Male/Flickr)

On Nov. 27, Taproot brought the resulting Housing Complex project to the public by hosting an event that was part panel discussion, part question-gathering, and part mind-mapping exercise. While we discussed our editorial series, we also turned the mic (or in this case, markers) over to participants. We asked the more than 70 people in the room what questions people hope city council candidates can address on housing during the coming 2025 election campaign, what people are curious about, and where they locate themselves within the broader housing ecosystem.

Here’s some of the input we collected during the event:

What do municipal candidates need to know about housing in Edmonton?

Attendees had plenty of questions and exhortations for the candidates who will be seeking office in the municipal election in October 2025.

“How can we incentivize builders to build more affordable housing?”
“How can we create a housing culture that’s unique to Edmonton, that is also ‘positive’ — and doesn’t leave people behind?”
“Work with (other) governments to reduce regulatory and attitude barriers!”
“Why has so much money been invested in shelters when we know they don’t house people?”
“How do we continue removing barriers for hard-to-house people and build more wraparound support directly into our communities?”
“Why subsidize suburban ‘infill’ with poor transit and terrible connectivity?”

An attendee at “Taproot presents: A conversation about housing” on Nov. 27, 2024, offers a thought at one of the activity stations. (Mack Male/Flickr)

What are you curious about on housing?

Taproot is built on the value of curiosity, and we bring this to every event we hold. Event attendees had plenty to offer.

One person asked for more stories on how people who have avoided homelessness have done so, and how someone who has transitioned into housing did so.

Others told us they are keen to know more about “innovative partnerships” to develop and operate affordable housing.

Still others identified the often fractured relationships between governments and asked how this might change. “How can the municipal, provincial, and federal governments work better together to provide affordable housing,” one wrote.

Another captured what many feel but struggle to say: “How have things seemingly changed so much in the past decade?”

Where are you in the housing ecosystem?

Taproot lastly asked people to locate themselves within the city’s housing ecosystem, how they felt about that position, and anything that made it complex. We put their written answers up on the wall as a bit of a mind map.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi participates in one of the activities at Taproot’s housing event while managing editor Tim Querengesser looks on. (Mack Male/Flickr)

Many told us they own their homes, though a sizeable chunk told us they rent, and still others said they had complex arrangements that don’t easily fit in these categorizations.

How people felt about their position in the ecosystem ranged from “Love it!” and “Lucky!” to “Relief” and “Difficult to picture the future.”

One person wrote they feel “guilty” about how much space, or affluence, or comfort they have.

“I feel isolated,” another wrote.

“I feel under cost pressure and mortgage rate pressure,” yet another wrote.

Another wrote they are stuck with a condo they can’t sell and are forced to be a landlord.

“Hard to balance feeling guilty, grateful, and stressed,” another person summarized. “All of the above.”

When offered a chance to explain what made their housing situation complex, more interesting details emerged:

“Not enough affordable housing options available for students.”
“The house has multiple owners and figuring out who pays for what can be complex.”
“I want to buy a home close to the core but increasingly feel I’ll never be able to afford to get into home ownership.”
“My property value skyrocketed recently and while that’s great for me I know it will cause issues for others.”
“Things are expensive.”
“Landlord relationships are crucial.”
“My home is not accessible and I can’t have my grandparents over.”
“We have so much room but are not close to transit.”
“Why is CMHC subsidizing suburban housing?”

Conclusion

The input Taproot received at the event will help inform the questions we ask candidates in the lead-up to the 2025 election and could lead to future stories as well.

Election day is Oct. 20, 2025. During the last municipal election, in 2021, Taproot created the People’s Agenda, which used extensive surveys to find out what Edmonton residents cared about and how candidates aligned with those goals. Taproot also offered plenty of news you could use in 2021, from where to vote to where to watch results roll in.

Our election coverage may differ slightly in 2025, but Taproot will work to equip our city with facts, context, ways to engage, and news people can use.

For more from the Taproot team on what Edmonton’s city council can and can’t do about housing, and what that will mean for the coming campaign, listen to Episode 289 of Speaking Municipally.

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.

Taproot joins Press Forward, a voice for indie media

Taproot Edmonton is now a proud member of Press Forward, an organization “dedicated to ensuring people in Canada have strong, independent and community-focused journalism.”

We’ve long been aligned with Press Forward’s goals, but we finally made time to apply. (Part of that process involved posting and/or updating our policies on corrections, ethics, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and privacy). We find ourselves among two dozen organizations of various shapes and sizes, which serve their communities and fund their work in a wide variety of ways. What we have in common is a deep connection to readers and members, as well as an interest in innovation.

Press Forward board member Brent Jolly addresses the crowd at the Future of Independent Media Summit in Toronto on Oct. 26, 2024. (Karen Unland)

On Oct. 26, Press Forward hosted the first Future of Independent Media Summit, convening journalists, news entrepreneurs, and others interested in independent media to explore what’s working, what’s been challenging, and what can be done to ensure sustainability. The gathering sparked a lot more ideas than I have room to list, but here are some takeaways:

There is a desire to shift the narrative from doom-and-gloom to optimism, and lots of reason to do so.
Philanthropic organizations in Canada are increasingly interested in bolstering community-based journalism, but we’re a long way from an ecosystem as robust as that in the U.S. (in which the very different American organization called Press Forward is a player).
Philanthropic institutions and others who can help care about strengthening community — that’s what the pitch needs to be, not “Help us save journalism.”
Reader support is vital, not only as a revenue source but to demonstrate to other potential funders that our work is valued and makes a difference.
In order to carry out this work and look after the people who do it, independent media organizations need to be financially stable, which requires multiple revenue streams.

The summit was a chance to meet new people and reconnect with old friends, including Trish Audette-Longo, who instigated the event at which Taproot co-founder Mack Male and I first announced our intention to start Taproot in May 2016. A very nice full-circle moment!

An update on Google funding

A huge topic of discussion at the summit and the subsequent Press Forward strategy session was the fate of the annual payment of $100 million that Google had committed to make to a collective of news publishers in response to Bill C-18, which became the Online News Act. All we knew on the weekend was that distribution of the funds was awaiting a CRTC decision on whether to exempt Google from the Online News Act’s requirement for tech platforms to pay for content shared on them.

On Oct. 28, the CRTC granted Google a five-year exemption and ordered the first $100 million to be released to the Canadian Journalism Collective to distribute the funds to eligible news outlets. Taproot is in line for some money from this, based on the number of full-time journalists we had in 2023 (which is fewer than we have now). Unfortunately, the CRTC ruled that freelancers’ hours will not be included, which potentially cuts into the amount we’ll get and is even more detrimental for some of our Press Forward colleagues.

News Media Canada, which represents legacy media such as Postmedia and other newspaper chains, lobbied hard to exclude freelancers. This demonstrates the importance of a voice for those who are trying to forge a new path rather than clinging to the old ways, and we clearly have some work to do to on this front.

On the other hand, Taproot has long preferred to seek revenue from places where we have more control — selling memberships, sponsorship, advertising, and related services — rather than relying on grants. Based on what we heard at the summit, this continues to seem wise, particularly given the federal Conservatives’ opposition to subsidies for journalism and the strong possibility of a change in government when Canadians next go to the polls.

This is a good time to remind you that the other result of the passage of the Online News Act was Meta’s decision to ban Canadian news links from Facebook and Instagram. Most of our distribution is by email, so this wasn’t a deadly blow for Taproot, but it is bothersome that we can’t share great work like our Housing Complex project in the places where a lot of Edmontonians spend their time. And it’s frustrating to see news-esque posts from sites without any of the hallmarks of responsible journalism.

Your contributions make a big difference

If you value Taproot and can afford to support it, we need you to do so. Membership fees not only provide capital to invest in the people who do the work, but they’re also a powerful signal to other funders that we are fulfilling a need. Individual memberships are $100 a year or $10 a month. We also now have business memberships.

If you’re not in a position to pay, please recommend Taproot to others. More readership is also a signal, and it helps us make the case to advertisers and sponsors that their money is well-spent.

Introducing Housing Complex, a special project from Taproot Edmonton

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Housing Complex, a multi-part project exploring what works, what doesn’t, and what can be done to improve Edmonton’s housing system.

Starting on Oct. 23, you can read our effort to better understand the complexity of a system that touches all of us and raises issues that candidates will have to grapple with heading into the 2025 municipal election. More stories will be published over the coming weeks, continuing the conversation through National Housing Day and beyond.

Eric Rice interviewed a variety of people about their experiences with the housing system as the starting point of Housing Complex, Taproot’s project on what works, what doesn’t, and what can be done about housing in Edmonton. (Jordon Hon)

For more on what to expect from the series, managing editor Tim Querengesser sets it up well in his introductory piece. I want to take you behind the curtain to explain how this project came about in the first place and why we approached it the way we did.

Our team has working on this series for months, but the seed that grew into Housing Complex was planted even further back in May of 2023. A valued member of our community reached out in advance of the annual homeless memorial service that the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness hosts every year in June to honour those who have died from not having access to adequate housing. Could Taproot do something, he asked, to better tell the story of those who had passed? Could we find a way to go beyond the typical coverage of the event, which tends to share a number — a sadly growing number in recent years — but not much about the actual people?

I didn’t know. But it felt like an idea worth exploring. An obituary is a way of saying, “This person mattered.” Perhaps that was a service we could provide and a way to raise awareness of the tragedy happening on our streets. But at a meeting to discuss the idea further, Jim Gurnett of ECOHH gently suggested it could be very difficult to tell a full and dignified story about someone whose life had ended on the street. It would perhaps be more meaningful and useful to focus on those who were still alive.

That idea resonated, but it brought with it other challenges. How could we sensitively gather and tell those stories without engaging in the kind of extractive journalism that exploits people without making their lives better and sometimes makes things worse? I thought of someone who might be able to help: Eric Rice, a writer whose project This is Where We Live was the subject of a Taproot story in November 2022.

Eric interviewed eight people who were homeless or had experienced homelessness. He turned those interviews into monologues that were then performed by professional actors whose age, gender, and ethnicity matched that of the interviewees. He took pains to get his interviewees’ approval of the way their stories would be told. “Each interview transcript was reviewed and highlighted by third parties, their input was used to create scripts, and the scripts were read back to the interviewees before taping,” he wrote of the project, which was originally intended to be a piece of theatre but became a film due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I sat down with Eric to see if he had any advice on how we might be able to approach a similar project as respectfully as he did. But as we talked, we realized that focusing on the individual stories of people who had fallen on hard times ignored or even erased that the homelessness crisis is the result of a system we are all involved in. I might even have used the word “complicit,” as I was about to put my house up for sale and hoped to get significantly more than what we paid for it when we bought it in 1999. The market helps some and hurts others. To truly tell the story, we needed to widen the scope.

While all of this was happening, Taproot co-founder Mack Male and I were heads-down in the build-the-airplane-while-you-fly-it mode of a media startup. Even if it was a good idea to try to apply Eric’s approach to a broader cross-section of Edmontonians involved in the housing system, Taproot didn’t have the resources to pull it off alone, and it was vital to us that the people engaging in acts of journalism get paid. The good news was that Eric wanted to not only offer advice but get involved, and he was willing to look for the money to help make it possible.

Working with Jim at ECOHH, Eric put together a proposal for funding from the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, a grant-making organization that supports projects that help people better understand issues related to the real estate industry. With ECOHH as the fiscal agent, Taproot as the publisher, and Eric as the project lead, we made a successful case for a $10,000 grant. Then the real work began.

Guided in part by a survey sent to the partners’ communities, Eric came up with a list of the kinds of people he would seek to interview. As was the case with This is Where We Live, he sought his subjects’ approval of the edited interview before publication. This departs from standard journalistic practice and is not something we typically do at Taproot. But we decided it was justifiable, with the disclosure you are reading now, in order to set vulnerable subjects’ minds at ease. We offered the same to interview subjects who we would not describe as vulnerable, as the ethos of the project has been to put everyone on the same level.

The grant also allowed Eric to pay a small honorarium to some of his interview subjects to recognize the value of their time. This was at his discretion. Those whose participation could be seen as part of their job were not compensated; those whose connection to the system was mostly through lived experience typically were. Again, this is not standard practice in journalism, and Taproot does not pay sources. But we were willing in this case to let Eric put part of the grant towards this in a way that mirrored his practice with the previous project.

Eric conducted his first interview on Feb. 28 and his last one on Sept. 25. While that was happening, Taproot’s team grew, and we saw an opportunity to zoom out a bit on the larger issues connected to the experiences of our 12 interviewees. In May of 2024, our civic affairs podcast Speaking Municipally recorded a live show in conjunction with the summer institute of the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative. That acted as a bit of a preview for Housing Complex and gave our audience a chance to hear more from both Eric and Josh Evans, associate professor of human geography at the University of Alberta and director of the Affordable Housing Solutions Lab. Some of the questions posed by attendees inspired the explanatory pieces that our editorial team will share with you in the coming weeks — watch for a new story every Wednesday through October and November.

You can find all of the stories that this series led to at Housing Complex, Taproot’s series on what works about Edmonton’s housing ecosystem, what doesn’t, and what can be done to improve it. Many thanks to housing advocate Nadine Chalifoux for welcoming Eric Rice and Jordon Hon into her home, where this doormat greets visitors. (Jordon Hon)

The final piece of the puzzle was how to present all of these words in an attractive and respectful way. Once again, someone Taproot has written about before was able to help: photographer Jordon Hon, whose docuseries about Chinatown was the subject of a December 2022 story. Jordon accompanied Eric to capture portraits of his interview subjects and the ways they live, adding another layer to the storytelling. We’re grateful that the grant allowed us to pair Eric’s careful and perceptive work with Jordon’s beautiful and telling images.

Based on what Tim heard at his listening session earlier this year, Taproot members want us to deliver more original journalism that goes deep, and they want to engage with each other in real life. We hope you’ll consider Housing Complex an example of the former. As for the latter, we’re planning to convene our collaborators, our participants, and the wider Taproot community at an event in November; that will also be an opportunity to learn more about the Affordable Housing Maintenance Fund, an endowment fund that Eric created through the Edmonton Community Foundation to create a stable, ongoing source of funding for the maintenance and repair of low-income housing in Edmonton. Stay tuned for your invitation to join us!

We’re grateful for the Alberta Real Estate Foundation’s support, which allowed us to pay for Eric’s time, Jordon’s photos, and some ancillary expenses. The grant did not cover the explanatory work, the development of the microsite displaying the project, or the coordination of many moving parts — Taproot relies on members, sponsors, and other paying customers to fund all of that.

You can help us continue to do the kind of work that informs and connects our community by becoming a Taproot member. If you’re already a member, please invite a friend to join you. We make all of our work free to read, but it is by no means free to make, and your support makes a big difference.

Taproot members speak: ‘Keep it up but also go deep’

We convened some of Taproot’s most committed supporters for the first in a series of listening sessions to understand why they value Taproot, where we can grow, shift, or improve, and how we might organize more community conversations focused on Edmonton.

This invitation to gather online on Sept. 13 was extended to paying members, partly to thank them for supporting the journalism we practice and publish, and partly to tap into the insights of our most committed supporters. Some are so dedicated, in fact, that their Taproot consumption sometimes overlaps. “I actually interrupted my listening to this week’s Speaking Municipally to come to this event,” joked one participant, noting they’ve never missed an episode of our weekly civic affairs podcast.

An analog version of Taproot’s dearly departed story garden, an early experiment in gathering our community’s curiosity. (Mack Male/Flickr)

We promised anonymity to encourage candour. Here is a condensed and edited report on what participants told me:

‘Why are you a Taproot member?’

“It’s valuable to have some little nods to things happening in the city that I wouldn’t have access to otherwise since I don’t have social media and I’m very happy about that,” one member said in response to an opening question about why they belong to Taproot.

The social media-free point resonated with others, too. “I left Twitter when it got sold, and I’m done with Facebook as well,” said another member. “I like the focus on local stuff. I like the in-detail descriptions and, again, I like the lack of the trauma and the drama. It is a source of a lot of ideas, and I think that exchange is healthy.”

It’s about values, said a member who has supported Taproot since the beginning back in 2016. “I just really loved the idea of having a community-driven and curiosity-driven news source,” they said. That same member valued Taproot’s “story garden,” an early experiment in curiosity-harvesting that allowed members to seed ideas for stories to pursue.

“I’m really fed up with the ‘mainstream media’ and its lack of impartiality,” another member told me, dropping that business and hockey interests seem to dictate editorial decisions at some legacy news outlets. “I also am very interested in municipal activities.”

Another amplified this point. “It’s important to have those local voices and, you know, we’re just getting fewer and fewer of these media entities.”

Some members said they are active in other communities that foreground connection and positive engagement with the city, such as Coffee Outside. And several said they joined Taproot thanks to their respect and connections with co-founders Karen Unland and Mack Male.

‘What are you curious about?’

I learned that Taproot’s members are quick with praise but also candid with feedback, which I deeply value.

Several suggested that Taproot has paid too little attention to what’s happening at school boards in Edmonton as we head into the next municipal elections in 2025.

“There’s a lot of partisanship in the school board already, so I’d like to hear more about that,” one member said. “One of the things that I’m interested in is that there is a deliberate attempt by Take Back Alberta to infiltrate the school boards across the province.”

Other members agreed. “I’ve got serious concerns about what will come in (at school boards), especially with Take Back Alberta,” one said. “They follow exactly the same model that has been followed in the United States — so, your Moms for Liberty kind of people. That’ll be traipsing in here, and they have pots of money.”

A theme of the conversation was the balance between breadth and depth. Some members said Taproot does breadth well but can improve on depth.

“Is there a role for investigative journalism in the future of Taproot Edmonton?” one member asked. “Because I think there’s a timidity about much of the reporting now. It’s being very safe. It’s not wanting to irritate people.”

Another added: “I’m going to cast my vote on depth versus breadth and say maybe don’t take on new topics but just go a little bit deeper into the things that you’re already doing. And I know with the election, that just seems like a natural (thing). You know you did great coverage last time, and we need that this time.”

Yet another member said critical perspectives should be present in as much of Taproot’s reporting and coverage as possible. “For me, it’s not even the need to do deep-dive investigative (journalism), but just maybe present another perspective,” they said, pointing to the introductory pieces that top our seven weekly roundups in particular.

Members say they want community

A sentiment that resonated with most members who participated in the listening session was enthusiasm for Speaking Municipally’s live recording on housing challenges, organized with the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative in May. The event brought people together in real life to connect and ask deep questions about complex issues.

Members told me they want Taproot’s listening sessions to edge closer to that model.

“I’d like to encourage Taproot to do that same thing again … there’s so many issues that we could link into,” they said. “So that might be a good thing to explore in the immediate future. Let’s bring people together. There is virtue in having a face-to-face conversation about these things as opposed to doing it virtually.”

I deeply value the chance to talk to people who read what we work on daily. Many thanks to all who participated. I agree that meeting in person would be valuable, and I’m now considering how that might happen. Whether the next listening session is in person or online, I aim to run the next one in November. I hope to see you there.