Canadian media: Where are they now?

Media Girlfriends 

The podcast production company Media Girlfriends has had an impressive three years! Led by journalists of colour Nana aba Duncan, Garvia Bailey, and Hannah Sung, the company has expanded to offering podcast and video production, consultation, and workshops. Their scholarship for young women and gender diverse students studying media is still going strong, and in 2021 they added a scholarship for a Black high school student of any gender. In 2022, they also introduced a scholarship for Indigenous high school, college, or university students of any gender. You should also check out the podcast they produced for Historica Canada, Strong and Free, about Black history in Canada.

Passage

In April, 2023, Passage, an online publication known for its left-wing opinion articles and essays, announced it had begun the process of merging with The Maple, another Canadian publication. The two complement each other well, as The Maple has been focused on news coverage of stories that have been underreported by the mainstream press. Now merged under the name The Maple (but with Passage’s iconic pink design), Passage’s managing editor Davide Mastracci serves as the publication’s opinion editor, while Alex Cosh, The Maple’s managing editor, is now the news editor.

The Pigeon

Created in July 2020 by a group of student journalists and graduates, The Pigeon was a pandemic pop-up project that ended a year later in the summer of 2021. The outlet was a place for emerging Canadian journalists to hone their feature writing skills and break into the industry. Tegwyn Hughes, The Pigeon’s former managing editor, says she’s happy to report that the Pigeon’s former volunteers are doing excellent work in the Canadian media industry thanks in part to their experiences at The Pigeon. By the end of the project, the team was also able to generate enough funding through Patreon to pay contributors for their work, including extra funding set aside for equity pay for marginalized writers. While The Pigeon’s website is now closed, their reporting is still available through the Wayback Machine.

Permanent Record

Published by small Alberta press Hingston & Olsen, the Permanent Record series preserves longform non-fiction features as standalone hardcover editions. Since publishing Fear on the Family Farm by Jana G. Pruden and Jerry and Marge Go Large by Jason Fagone in 2020, the series hasn’t had any new entries. Editor Michael Hingston says they are hoping to bring back the Permanent Record series in 2024 with a new title. For now, their iconic Short Story Advent Calendar’s ninth edition has just gone on sale, and Hingston says it’s one of their best collections yet.

Hush Harbour

A Black Feminist Queer press launched in 2020, Hush Harbour announced their first title and author this summer: Dianah Smith‘s “Whoever You Love I Love”. Smith is a winner of the 2022 Journey Prize celebrating the best of Canada’s new Black writers, and her forthcoming hybrid memoir is described as Smith’s “journey to reexamine everything she once believed about her family, culture, and history” after coming out to her rural Jamaican grandmother and receiving the “surprising and beautiful response” of “Whoever you love, I love.”

The Writer’s Co-op

Started in early 2020, The Writer’s Co-op podcast, hosted and executive produced by Seattle-based freelancer Wudan Yan, now has a great backlog of episodes to dive into if you’re making the jump into a freelance career. I’m also excited to see the co-op continuing to offer more and more resources, from webinars on how to price freelance projects to worksheets on mapping your capacity, and even full courses on business planning.