Follow our reporting and get involved. Sign up for our newsletter.
Close
Search all Discourse content.
Close
Erin Millar is Discourse Media’s editor-in-chief and CEO. She has received multiple awards for journalism innovation, including being named 2015 Bob Carty Fellow by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Storyteller-in-Residence at Ashoka Canada, and an AmEx Emerging Innovator. She has hosted talks and workshops across Canada and internationally, including at the Canadian Association of Journalists national conference and Italy’s International Journalism Festival. She has reported from over a dozen countries for Canadian and international publications. She taught journalism at Quest University Canada and Langara College. She is a trustee of the Uncharted Journalism Fund and serves on the board of the National Magazine Awards Foundation.
Ian Gill is Discourse Media’s president. He is a columnist with The Tyee and the author of four books, including No News Is Bad News: Canada’s Media Collapse — And What Comes Next. Ian has worked at the Vancouver Sun as senior reporter and editor and with CBC as a radio columnist and award-winning documentary reporter. He is a former fellow of Journalistes en Europe and served for several years on the board of Canada’s Centre for Investigative Journalism. In 1994, Ian founded Ecotrust Canada, a Vancouver-based non-profit working in coastal communities. Ian has worked extensively with philanthropic foundations and non-profits in Canada, the U.S. and his native Australia. In 2015, Ian was a senior fellow with the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation.
Caitlin Havlak is chief operating officer of Discourse Media. As Discourse’s earliest employee, Caitlin brings key institutional knowledge about how Discourse functions to her role overseeing the company’s operational challenges during this rapid period of growth. She also leads digital development of our technology and digital properties. Prior to taking on this role, Caitlin led Discourse’s data journalism team. She is a data analyst and developer dedicated to making complex issues more accessible and engaging to a broad audience. Caitlin’s data journalism work earned Discourse national and international awards for projects including the Cost to Commute Calculator for Moving Forward and a deep data analysis into racial profiling in the Prairies in partnership with Maclean's magazine. Caitlin is also an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches data journalism and visualization.
Rachel Nixon is executive editor of Discourse Media. An award-winning digital news leader, she has two decades’ experience shaping editorial and digital strategies for international media organizations. She has previously served as editor-in-chief of MSN News and Sports in the U.S. and as senior director of digital media for CBC News in Toronto. At CBC, she led the relaunch of the digital news service and drove high-impact projects. Before coming to Canada, Rachel was one of the first journalists for the world-renowned BBC News website in London. She held senior editorial roles in her nine years with the site and was named BBC World Service Editor of the Year in 2007.
Anita Li is the Media Innovation Editor at Discourse Media and founder of The Other Wave, a website dedicated to covering media from a multicultural perspective. Prior to that, she served as senior editor of Fusion's flagship Justice vertical and as news director at Complex. Anita has also held reporting and editing positions at media outlets across North America, including Mashable, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, CBC and CTV. In 2015, she gave a TEDx talk on the importance of diversity in newsrooms. Anita frequently provides commentary on journalistic innovation and the future of media.
Katie Lewis is Discourse’s Director of Editorial Products. She’s an award-winning journalist for outlets including the Ottawa Citizen, the CBC, The Toronto Star and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Katie has reported from countries around the globe — including Uganda, South Sudan, Somalia, Colombia, China and more. She was a recipient of the Goff Penny Award for Young Canadian Journalists, the Diane King Stuemer Fellowship and the IDRC Award for International Development Journalism. Most recently, she worked in a senior communications role with RBC. Katie holds both a Bachelor and Master of Journalism Degree from Carleton University.
Lindsay Sample is Discourse Media’s managing editor. She is a multimedia investigative journalist who is passionate about long-form storytelling. Before joining Discourse, Lindsay worked for CBC’s Marketplace, Canada's consumer watchdog. She investigated issues including consumer racism and the impact of corporate pressures on pharmacists. In 2016, Lindsay travelled to South Africa as an International Reporting Project fellow to report on the link between lack of access to sanitation and sexual assault, producing a radio documentary through CBC's The Doc Project for The Current. Lindsay has also produced videos for The New York Times, researched with Dan Rather Reports and produced content for the Global Reporting Centre.
Francesca Fionda is a data journalist at Discourse Media. She has contributed to in-depth reports delivered across broadcast, digital and social media platforms on Canada’s premier current affair programs. She’s worked on a range of investigative stories covering topics like industry influence, the justice system and human rights.
Her work has earned nominations and awards from the Canadian Screen Awards, Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada Media Awards, Radio Television and Digital News Association and the New York Festivals Worlds.
Wawmeesh Hamilton is a reporter at Discourse Media. He has won three B.C.-Yukon Community Newspaper Association awards, three Canadian Community Newspaper Association awards, and, along with colleague Peter Mothe, a 2015 Canadian Online Publishing Award. His work has been published with CBC, The Canadian Press, The Globe and Mail, Metro and The Tyee. Wawmeesh graduated with an MA from the UBC Graduate School of Journalism in 2016. His thesis documented the banishment and reintegration of Indigenous sex offenders from their communities. Wawmeesh is a member of the Hupacasath First Nation in Port Alberni, B.C.
Brielle Morgan is a writer and producer with a passion for process, an ear for elders and an interest in building platforms for story-sharing among underrepresented communities. She is a co-founder of Storywise, an audio story-gathering initiative. Brielle has reported for Nunatsiaq News in Canada’s far north, CBC’s As It Happens and B.C.’s Knowledge Network. She has collaborated with citizen journalists in East Africa and studied journalistic ethics as a FASPE fellow. Brielle has a Master of Journalism degree from Carleton University.
Lauren Kaljur is a multimedia journalist specializing in environmental, economic and Indigenous affairs. As a News21 fellow, she uncovered stories about water contamination in Indigenous communities across the United States, with multimedia content published in various U.S. outlets. Her contributions as an investigative reporter for the national collaborative project, the Price of Oil, appeared in the Toronto Star, National Observer and Global News. Before her role at Discourse, Lauren reported for the Yukon News, CBC and Arctic Deeply. Lauren is an avid photographer, videographer and audiophile, carrying a Master of Journalism degree from the University of British Columbia.
Sonam Swarup has spent several years working with social impact organizations, including The Wellbeing Project and Fusion Kitchen. She has received multiple awards for her work, including HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow for Western Canada and AmEx Emerging Innovator. She holds a BA in communications from Simon Fraser University and has studied internationally at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Alia Dharssi is Discourse Media’s Sustainable Development Reporter. She is passionate about telling under-covered stories that can help spark public debate and positive social change. Previously, as the 2016 Michelle Lang Fellow at the Calgary Herald and the National Post, she spent a year producing an investigative series on immigration policy and the Canadian economy. Her writing on global development issues, Canadian politics, business and women’s rights has been published by the Guardian, the Financial Post, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, VICE, the Canadian International Council and others. Alia holds an M.Phil. in Development Studies from the University of Oxford and a Certificate in Global Journalism from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, where she was a Global Journalism Fellow.
Emma Jones came to Discourse Media as a fellow in the summer of 2016 and has since worked on projects ranging from education coverage to reconciliation reporting. She has been an intern at CBC Nova Scotia’s digital department and a freelance journalist. Emma holds a degree in journalism and contemporary philosophy from the University of King's College in Halifax. She’s motivated to tell stories that drive social change and has reported for CANADALAND, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, CBC Nova Scotia, The Coast and The Globe and Mail.
Ash Kelly first joined Discourse Media as an intern in 2013 and has since contributed reporting to multiple projects. A graduate of the journalism program at Langara College, Ash was awarded the Penny Wise Journalism Scholarship and the Jeani Read-Michael Mercer Scholarship. The latter supported her collaboration with CBC Radio Vancouver’s On the Coast to produce a week-long series about the elevated risk of abuse toward people with disabilities in the Lower Mainland. Ash’s work has appeared in CBC, the The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s and The Province.
Cate Friesen is a consultant and trainer specializing in storytelling and capacity-building for charitable organizations. She has 25 years of experience as a documentary maker, producer, performer, trainer and coach. She led the team that created CBC’s multiple award-winning interactive “Missing and Murdered: The Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls,” has co-created a unique mentorship program based on collaborative learning, and was instrumental in the launch of CBC’s Indigenous Digital Unit. She has also produced documentaries for CBC’s Sunday Edition and Tapestry. Before that, she recorded three CDs and toured across Canada as a singer-songwriter.
Christopher Pollon is a Vancouver-based independent journalist covering business and the politics of natural resources, with a focus on energy, mines and oceans. His writing has appeared in The Walrus, Reader’s Digest, The Globe and Mail, National Geographic Books, and The Tyee, where he has been a Contributing Editor since 2008. Christopher's first book, The Peace in Peril: The Real Cost of the Site C Dam (Harbour Publishing) was published in late 2016.
Colleen Kimmett is an award-winning Montreal-based journalist focused on social justice and environmental issues. Her journalism has appeared in publications including Canadian Geographic, Chatelaine, The Guardian and The New Republic. Previously, Colleen worked as a reporter and editor focusing on food policy for The Tyee, the only Canadian news organization to win two Edward R. Murrow awards for Excellence in Journalism. In 2010, Colleen helped launch The Tyee Solutions Society, a non-profit focused on producing catalytic journalism in the public interest.
Daina Lawrence has worked as both a staff and freelance writer for the past eight years. Specializing in business and finance coverage, her work has appeared in international and Canadian publications, including Canadian Business magazine, the Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, The Toronto Star and The Walrus.
Trevor Jang is an award-winning journalist and writer with a passion for Indigenous issues. He was a recipient of the 2016 CBC Indigenous Fellowship through the Canadian Journalism Foundation and a finalist for the 2016 British Columbia Association of Broadcasters Excellence in News Reporting award. Trevor spent two years hosting a radio show on Canada's First Nations Radio (CFNR) Network in northern B.C. which focused on First Nations culture, music and issues. He is a mix of Chinese-Canadian and Wet'suwet'en descent.
Discourse Media was founded in March 2014 by journalists Erin Millar, Christine McLaren and Colleen Kimmett.
In-depth journalism with impact
Discourse Media is an independent journalism company dedicated to in-depth reporting on complex issues. We are building a home for new approaches to storytelling that look beyond conflict-driven daily news cycles.
GET INVOLVED
We’d love to hear your stories. How are you impacted by the issues we’re reporting on? What solutions do you see? Who is inspiring you? Get in touch.
WORK WITH US
Learn about our products and services.
© 2016 Discourse Media Inc. Privacy Policy Terms of Use
