Readers offer guidance on how to grow membership

“Don’t ask, don’t get.” We often cite those four words from Amanda Wagner, delivered during an accelerator that Taproot co-founder Mack Male and I attended in 2019. This month, that mantra led us to ask for information from the people who read Taproot but are not paying members. Their answers were revealing.

Why did we ask?

Taproot’s journalism has always been freely accessible. We believe a paywall would stand in the way of our mission to inform and connect the Edmonton region. But we have also always made it possible to buy memberships for $10 per month or $100 per year. This was our first revenue stream, and it remains an important source of funding to pay the people who carry out our mission.

About 6% of the people on our current mailing list pay for Taproot memberships. We wanted to better understand what has stopped the 94% from becoming paying members.

What did we ask?

On Sept. 4, we sent them a survey asking them to indicate what has stopped them from becoming paying members of Taproot. We gave them the opportunity to choose up to three responses from a list of reasons:

I didn’t know paid membership was an option
I don’t know how to become a paying member
I don’t get enough value from what Taproot publishes to pay for it
Taproot doesn’t offer enough extra benefits to members
I can’t afford the current price
I reserve my media budget for news outlets with paywalls
I am already a paying member under a different email address
Someone else in my household is already a paying members
I want to know what Taproot publishes but I don’t want to support it
Other

We also invited them to tell us more about their answer.

What have we learned so far?

The email containing the survey was opened by about half of the recipients, and of those, about 8% answered it. So this is based on a small sample of our total readership. Still, the responses offered some useful guidance.

We need to improve our communications about membership

The answer with the most responses was “I didn’t know paid membership was an option.” Coupled with a few more responses indicating people knew membership was possible but didn’t know how to buy it, it’s clear that we need to make that option clearer and the path more obvious.

It didn’t take much of a nudge for some of the survey recipients to take the next step and start paying — at least a dozen upgraded to paid memberships shortly after the email went out. We asked and we got!

The Tyee has a message from the publisher at the bottom of every article encouraging readers to become paying members and explaining how they are contributing to free access for all. CKUA makes a similar pitch — you don’t have to pay to enjoy it, but if you do, you contribute to the station’s sustainability. We’ll be taking inspiration from these and other sources as we make our pitch more explicit on the Taproot Edmonton website.

We’ll also update our signup page and integrate information about our new Business Membership, which allows companies to sign up all of their staff, ensuring a well-informed workforce while supporting our efforts to continue to provide that information.

Some might pay if membership cost less

We heard from some people that $100 a year or $10 a month is a heavy lift, especially with so many other subscriptions pulling on the pocketbook.

Membership prices have stayed the same since we launched the first version of Taproot in 2016, aside from an increase when we got big enough to have to charge GST. There wasn’t a lot of science behind the price points we chose. We needed to see if people believed in the idea enough to join; $100 a year or $10 a month was memorable and made for easy math.

Perhaps different membership tiers would make it possible for more people to support us monetarily. A one-time donation option may appeal to some. Or maybe we should take a page from some of our friends in the arts community and institute a pay-what-you-can system. We’ll take it all under advisement.

Also, we know there’s interest in being able to claim the digital news subscription tax credit. Taproot hasn’t been eligible in the past, but we’re getting closer to qualifying, and we hope to have some good news to share before the end of the year.

Some might pay if benefits were beefed up

We don’t do tote bags at Taproot (at least not yet). So what do you get if you’re a member?

Initially, paid members had exclusive access to our “story garden,” a place to plant seeds of curiosity, some of which would grow into full-fledged stories that we would pay freelancers to write. It was an innovative concept, but it was hard to respond to all of the ideas in a timely way, even with a small minority of our members engaging. As our business model and editorial practices evolved, we closed the story garden.

For a while, free readers were limited to two weekly roundups, while paying members had access to as many as they wanted. In 2023, we lifted that restriction (but didn’t ballyhoo the change — if you’re a free reader, go ahead and update your preferences to get as many newsletters as you want, including the new Events Roundup).

Right now, the main benefit of paying for Taproot is the warm feeling you get from knowing you are supporting independent local journalism and making it possible for everyone to consume it. That is valuable, as the Membership Puzzle found in a study of news sites around the world. “(Many) supporters of open access news sites say they’re aware that they’re paying for the site’s work as a voluntary act that subsidizes journalism for others,” it noted. “But this is a point of pride, not frustration, for most of them.”

And yet, it’s understandable to expect membership to have its privileges.

Our managing editor, Tim Querengesser, is experimenting with members-only listening sessions as a way to tap into the curiosity of our biggest supporters. In the inaugural session held online on Sept. 13, participants said they wanted not only to interact with Taproot staff but also with each other, preferably in person. (We’ll share more about what we learned in the coming days.) Based on previous experiences with the recent Speaking Municipally live show and other collaborations with Let’s Find Out, we know the power of real-life interaction with our community. One of our survey respondents went further, suggesting that members-only networking events could be particularly enticing if they provided “an inside track to meet the movers and shakers in Edmonton that you’re writing about.” There’s definitely something to explore there.

In the absence of defined benefits, it’s hard for readers to imagine what else we could do that might persuade them to become paying members. Our plan is to follow up this survey with another one that asks about various potential perks to see what would be the most enticing.

Some might pay if we published more of our own journalism

Taproot publishes at least one original story based on our own reporting every weekday, and Speaking Municipally rounds out the week with original commentary on what went on at city hall. Much of the rest of our output is curated from other sources, whether it be the Headlines that summarize recent news in The Pulse, or the items collected in our weekly roundups on Tech, Food, Health, the Region, Arts, and Business. The Taproot Edmonton Calendar, which feeds the “Happenings” files in our newsletters, is also a product of curation.

Much of this is by design. We subscribe to Jeff Jarvis’s credo: “Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.” We happily point to the work of “the competition,” which is a service to our readers, while reserving our resources for stories that no one else is doing. Curation also allows us to bring our readers much more information than a small newsroom could otherwise provide. In a given week, Taproot publishes about 20,000 finely crafted words — that’s a lot for this many people, and it’s only possible because of a methodology we’ve honed over many years, assisted by technology that Mack has developed from scratch. That “pay-attention engine,” as we’ve sometimes called it, is not flashy, but it provides sustained value, and maybe the lesson here is that we should tell that story more often.

We certainly want to publish more and deeper work. Taproot was born because of the erosion of local journalism that was evident in 2016 and has only worsened since. We are driven to replace what has been lost with something better. So it’s good to know that some would pay if we did more of what we already aspire to do.

Some won’t pay, no matter what

We did hear some variations on the idea that information wants to be free. In a way, we agree. That’s why we don’t have a paywall. We refuse to contribute to a situation where only those who have the means can access reliable information, especially about the place where they live.

However, that which is free to read is not free to make. Someone has to pay.

One of the strengths of our company is its diverse revenue streams. We sell advertising and sponsorship, as well as a business-to-business information service called Spotlight, and we manage to get a few grants and subsidies here and there. Those sources and our small but mighty base of paying members combine to make everything we do possible. It wouldn’t be prudent to rely on just one of those streams and, to be frank, it hasn’t been prudent to neglect growing our membership revenue. We’re grateful for the feedback to guide us toward rectifying that.

Taproot launches an Events Roundup

If you’re looking for something to do, for business or for fun, you’ll find thousands of events to choose from in the Taproot Edmonton Calendar. You can filter that gigantic list by category or other parameters, but we’ll be the first to admit that it’s a lot. Plus, you have to go to the Calendar to see what’s there — what if a curated list of suggestions came to you instead?

A screenshot from the Aug. 22 edition of Taproot’s new Events Roundup.

That’s the idea behind the new Events Roundup, which you can now sign up to receive every Thursday afternoon. It’s somewhat similar to our other weekly roundups, but the focus is on listings rather than news items. Every edition kicks off with a recommendation, followed by upcoming events on a certain theme, some listings for the week ahead, and a few suggestions that are further ahead in the calendar.

Social media platforms ate up the advertising that used to support listings in the mainstream and alternative media, and they took away a lot of our attention, too. But the algorithms are increasingly unfriendly to both event organizers and event-goers. So let’s bypass all of that with a local, vetted, comprehensive listing that’s free to use and free to peruse. And let’s make it easy for you to know what’s going on with a tight, informative roundup of listings delivered directly to your inbox.

“I would have gone if I had known!” is a common lament. The Events Roundup is one more way to we can help you prevent those blues.

If you’re new to Taproot, subscribe for free today! If you’re already a subscriber, click the “update preferences” link in any email from us to add the Events Roundup to your selections.

It’s time for Taproot’s summer break

As is our custom twice a year, Taproot Edmonton is taking a break from our regular publishing schedule. This is to give our team a chance to catch their breath and make some room for the important but not urgent work that is vital for our long-term sustainability. A regular publishing cadence is a beautiful and necessary thing, but it’s also a hamster wheel, and every now and then, we step off.

Our 2024 summer break will overlap with the August long weekend, which is a little earlier than in previous years. The last edition of The Pulse before the break is on July 26, and it will be back in your inbox on Aug. 12. Our weekly roundups will resume in mid-August as well. Speaking Municipally will return around the time that Edmonton city council gets back to work.

A little girl walking toward a bicycle through water fountains with the Alberta Legislature in the background

While you won’t see any fresh stories on our site during the break, the Taproot Edmonton Calendar will continue to offer a huge variety of event listings throughout the summer and beyond. Our own Debbi Serafinchon has made sure there’s a rich selection of things to do, and she’ll keep adding events as she learns of them. (Feel free to submit yours.)

Pausing our publications has a lot of benefits, but it does cost us some revenue, as we don’t deliver ads in our newsletters or podcasts during that time. We also lose some visibility because we disappear from social media. Here are a few ways you can help us fill that gap:

Become a paying member if you aren’t already one. Taproot is free to read, but it’s not free to make. If you have the means to pay $10 a month or $100 a year, you’ll be helping us inform and connect everyone in the Edmonton area.
Ask your employer to buy a Business Membership. This is a great way to get everyone in your organization on the same page while helping us continue to pay attention to our community.
Refer a friend. At the bottom of every email you receive from Taproot, there’s a unique referral link — share it and you’ll earn points you can redeem for rewards.
Tell us why you love Taproot so we can share your testimonial with others.

Enjoy these midsummer weeks, and we’ll see you again on Aug. 12!

Introducing Taproot Edmonton’s Business Membership

The Edmonton region is facing a significant challenge: a lack of coverage of the people and organizations shaping our community’s future. With fewer resources dedicated to telling these important stories, everyone is missing out on vital information.

At Taproot Edmonton, we are committed to informing and connecting people across the Edmonton region through original reporting, newsletters, podcasts, and our recently launched events calendar.

Today, we are excited to introduce our new Business Membership program, designed to enlist the business community’s help to fill the knowledge gap and thus build a more informed and connected community.

Why is there a lack of business coverage?

Since 2008, nine local news publications in Edmonton have closed and another seven have decreased their coverage, according to the Local News Research Project. Just four local news publications have launched during the same period, including Taproot Edmonton.

The situation across the region is even more dire, where existing publications were much smaller to begin with. In addition to local news, we’ve also lost business-focused publications such as Alberta Venture.

These were the headlines in March 2017 — things have only gotten worse since then. (Mack Male/Flickr)

In the past, local news outlets published more stories about what businesses and other organizations were up to. But as their resources have shrunk, business coverage has tended to fall by the wayside as assignment editors focus on what they consider core subjects: crime, politics, and sports. As a result, there are few if any local beat reporters in our region focused solely on business.

We need a more intentional approach to ensure that local stories of innovators, entrepreneurs, and changemakers are told.

What is Taproot doing to address this gap?

We have been working to build the infrastructure required for impactful local beat reporting since we started.

For example, we already pay more attention to local business than anyone else. We publish dozens of original stories about business every month, and we publish the Business Roundup every Friday morning. News about local business and economic development is also a key part of several other roundups, including the Tech Roundup and the Regional Roundup.

Business is often discussed on our weekly municipal affairs podcast, Speaking Municipally, and in the past we have published an entire podcast focused on local innovation businesses (and we’re interested in reviving that).

We also curate hundreds of business-related events on the Taproot Edmonton Calendar.

We reach thousands of people every day through The Pulse and our other publications. Every time another local publication follows our story with their own version (which happens with increasing frequency), more people learn about the Edmonton region.

But imagine the impact we could have with more resources to boost local news coverage and grow our audience.

What is the Business Membership program?

We want to enlist members of the business community as partners in our effort to enhance local news coverage and broaden our reach. By purchasing a business membership, you help ensure ongoing, smart, comprehensive coverage of the local community and support the infrastructure needed for continuous storytelling.

We offer four membership tiers:

Starter (up to 15 employees): $100/person per year
Small (up to 49 employees): $1,500 per year
Medium (50-199 employees): $3,500 per year
Large (200+ employees): $7,500 per year

Each tier allows you to add your team members to Taproot’s mailing list. That means they’ll be better informed and connected, and it helps us grow our audience.

The financial support and increased readership will help a great deal, but we also want to hear from you about what you’re seeing in the local news ecosystem. We plan to host a quarterly summit for business members to discuss gaps, challenges, and ideas.

What are the benefits of joining the Business Membership program?

As a business member, you will:

Support local journalism and ensure that important local stories are told.
Equip your team with the latest news and events in the Edmonton region.
Enhance your brand’s visibility through recognition in our newsletters and on our website.
Receive advertising credits for use in Taproot Edmonton’s publications.
Optionally participate in quarterly summits to discuss gaps and challenges in the local news ecosystem.

In short, you’ll be making a significant contribution to a more informed and connected Edmonton region.

How can my business sign up as a member?

To join, simply fill out this form with your business name, contact information, and preferred membership tier. Then we’ll follow up to activate your membership.

How will you use my membership fees?

We’re a business too, so we understand you expect value for your investment.

We will invest membership fees primarily in marketing and product development to grow our audience and enhance our offerings. This will in turn broaden our reach and impact, which will help us attract more members, sponsors, and advertisers. That’s the flywheel we’re trying to get spinning to support local journalism in the Edmonton region.

Does this mean Taproot will only write positive things about business?

No, our allegiance remains to the reader, regardless of where our revenue comes from. We will continue to cover all aspects of the business community, including challenges and opportunities for improvement. We adhere to the ethics guidelines published by the Canadian Association of Journalists and believe that transparency is key to building and maintaining trust with our readers, members, and other stakeholders.

What if I don’t have a business?

We invite you to join Taproot Edmonton as an individual member. For just $100 per year, you can support local journalism for the Edmonton region. Learn more and sign up here.

Who can I contact for more information?

For more details or to discuss further opportunities, please reach out to Mack Male and Karen Unland:

Mack Male — mack@taprootpublishing.ca — 780-619-3864
Karen Unland — karen@taprootpublishing.ca — 587-986-5442

Supporting local journalism is crucial for maintaining a vibrant, informed, and connected community. We encourage you to become a business member today to help us boost local storytelling in the Edmonton region.

Thank you for your support!

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.

Meet Taproot Edmonton’s new managing editor

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.

A smiling man squatting in a bike lane on a sunny fall day in Edmonton — Tim Querengesser is Taproot Edmonton’s new managing editor.

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.”

Meet Taproot Edmonton’s new curator/reporter

More good news! We have welcomed Stephanie Swensrude to Taproot Edmonton’s growing editorial team.

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 Swensrude joined Taproot as a reporter and curator in October 2023. (Supplied)

Stephanie has already gathered a few bylines, covering an Edmonton Downtown Business Association luncheon on attracting retail to the core, writing up the results of the Start Alberta Tech Awards, and sharing some of the newsiest bits of Let’s Find Out’s recent live show.

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.”

Welcome to the team, Stephanie!

LION names Taproot a finalist for resilience award

We’re honoured to be among the independent news organizations nominated for this year’s LION Local Journalism Awards!

A team meeting from May 2023, with (clockwise from top left) reporter Colin Gallant, editor-in-chief Karen Unland, publisher Mack Male, reporters Shayne Giles and Nathan Fung, and editorial assistant Ashley Lavallee-Koenig.

Taproot Edmonton finds itself in the excellent company of The Appeal, Dallas Free Press, and Santa Cruz Local in the operational resilience category, which recognizes outlets for “establishing processes, policies, and a company culture designed to support staff and manage growth in order to prevent burnout among the very people whose talent and buy-in are critical to their success.”

We’ve done a ton of work over the past year to make Taproot a healthy and supportive workplace. It’s hard to do that while you’re building a business and publishing daily, but it’s absolutely vital to look after the people who do the work. We’ve learned some hard lessons on the way to that realization, and we’re still learning. But we’ve made progress, thanks to excellent coaching from Bene Cipolla via the GNI Startups Lab on building and managing a team as well as wise counsel from our mentors at the ThresholdImpact Venture Mentoring Service. This has led to solid practices to help everyone on our team uphold our core values: curiosity, courage, and care. When people are struggling, we lift them up. When they’re excelling, we cheer them on.

It feels great to be recognized for what we’ve developed, but honestly, the best reward is when we have our weekly team meeting and everyone enthusiastically participates in our wellness check. The practices we’ve adopted helped us onboard two interns and a Canada Summer Jobs hire, integrating them with our regular staff to form a cohesive team. A shared vocabulary for meaningfully answering the question “How are you?” and a concerted effort to listen have helped us knit people together, even though we are rarely if ever in the same room.

(By the way, we’re planning to hire soon. If you’re an experienced journalist based in Edmonton or willing to move here, and you’re looking to work for an organization that genuinely cares how you’re doing, keep an eye out for our posting.)

As is our custom, Taproot Edmonton is about to take a two-week publishing break so we can catch our breath and be strong for the rest of the year. We’ll publish The Pulse and our roundups until Aug. 18, then we’ll be off until Sept. 5. You can expect a couple of episodes of Speaking Municipally during the break, however, as city council will be back in session and our civic affairs podcast will have things to say.

If you like what Taproot is doing and would like to help us go further faster, become a member or a sponsor. And if you know someone who wants to better understand what’s going on in Edmonton, tell them about us. (It looks like we won’t be able to rely on Meta for that.) We’re building what comes next in local media, and we’re working hard to make sure it’s better and healthier than what we’re replacing.

Taproot co-founder helping to update Canadian journalism ethics guidelines

Karen Unland, Taproot’s co-founder, is bringing her perspective as a leader of an independent journalism startup to the future of ethics guidelines for Canadian journalists.

Karen has served on the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) ethics advisory committee since September 2021. Board-appointed, the committee exists to provide advice on ethical issues faced by Canadian journalists in their regular work. Its 11 members, drawing on experience in independent and mainstream media and academia, meet about once a month to discuss key issues and develop policy and discussion papers.

“Something that has emerged, for me,” said Karen, “is an appreciation of how smart the committee members are and how deeply they think about these issues. It is intellectually stimulating to have these discussions.”

Karen said the committee offers a space for “sober second thought away from the thrust of daily decision-making” and allows members to thoroughly interrogate the profession’s foundational principles and practice. One recent discussion paper, for example, sought to define the meaning of journalism to capture dramatic transformations and growing diversity in the kinds of activities that could be considered journalistic work.

In early 2023, Karen joined a subcommittee to review the CAJ’s Ethics Guidelines. This widely cited document, which is designed to help new and seasoned journalists hold themselves accountable for their professional work, has not been updated since 2011.

“This is the sort of topic that I like to nerd out about,” said Karen. “Although I am not the only representative of independent media, I thought it would be valuable to bring perspective from someone working in an emerging newsroom and running a journalism business.”

Taproot co-founder Karen Unland moderated a discussion on updating CAJ’s ethics guidelines at the 2023 CAJ conference in Vancouver. (Supplied)

Karen’s participation also took her to Vancouver in mid-April for the CAJ’s annual conference. She moderated a panel featuring fellow committee members Pat Perkel and Anita Li. Perkel is a former executive director of the National NewsMedia Council and a veteran of small newsrooms in northern Ontario; Li is the founder of a hyperlocal community-driven publication called The Green Line and a journalism innovation newsletter called The Other Wave. They outlined how they are approaching the revision of the ethics guidelines and solicited opinions for working journalists in the audience about how they use them.

Taproot is helping to shape the future of the industry

Karen said she is approaching the review of the ethics guidelines in much the same way as Taproot approaches its work, by focusing on the end user. That means considering how to make the guidelines as useful as possible to journalists who may be working in new newsrooms or depleted ones that lack institutional memory or robust policies of their own.

“I think we’ve made some really decent progress around updating the guidelines for the world we find ourselves in right now,” said Karen, “and future-proofing them a bit for things that come along that we can’t yet anticipate.”

Karen is grateful to the CAJ for this opportunity to take part in national conversations shaping the future of our industry.

“We want to reassure our readers that Taproot is here for the long haul,” said Karen. “We conduct our work the best we can and with a view to continuous improvement. Because of this, we are increasingly able to access opportunities and share what we know and learn with others.”

Correction: This file has been updated to more accurately describe The Green Line.

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!