In the news
What does it take to be a “full-service” digital journalism organization? Ask Discourse Media
May 27, 2016
By: Shan Wang
Excerpt from Nieman Lab
Discourse Media does a bit of everything.
The two-and-a-half year old Vancouver-based organization, for instance, collaborates with other media outlets on stories: It teamed up with Maclean’s reporter Nancy Macdonald on a months-long investigation into why Indigenous people are overrepresented in incarceration rates. That included conducting an original survey of post-secondary students after eight FOI requests with police agencies came up empty.
Discourse also administered a philanthropy-backed global fellowship, selecting nine journalists from around the world to report on energy access in their regions. It conducts the annual Canadian University Report for The Globe and Mail. On Friday, it launched Toward Reconciliation, a multi-part project about how journalism can drive better public discourse around Canadian colonial history, Indigenous land rights, and reconciliation (the investigation with Maclean’s on disproportionate incarceration rates for Indigenous people was one element of this project). At one point early on, it even worked on a sponsored content project.
“We’ve had to pivot quickly, and it’s been stressful at times,” Erin Millar, Discourse Media’s cofounder and CEO, said. “We’ve gone down lots of experimental rabbit holes.”
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