We Love, Support, and Rely on Lefty Journalism!
(aka wtf is going on with the dystopian Meta news ban, and how you can stay connected with rad independent Canadian analysis) - updated Aug. 15, 2023
Image description: Logo collage of Canadian left journalism, enumerated in this blog.
What is happening?
In 2022, the federal Liberal government introduced Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which would impose a fee on Google and Meta for Canadian news content being shared on their platforms. The government proposed this “link-tax” as a way to compensate news outlets from the billions in advertising dollars that tech giants have siphoned away from Canadian-owned media.
While Big Tech is in many ways responsible for Canadian newsrooms struggling, some journalists raised concerns about Bill C-18 disproportionately benefitting corporate media. Critics have urged for more effective and structural interventions, like the straight up taxation of corporate profits, better regulation of the tech sector’s abuse of the advertising market and violations of user privacy, antitrust investigations of monopolistic domination, or even building a publicly-owned social network.
Instead, journalism is being attacked once again. After months of threats, the head of public policy for Meta Canada (and former Stephen Harper advisor) recently announced that Facebook and Instagram had “begun the process of ending news availability permanently in Canada” and will block users on the platform from sharing Canadian media content.
What it means
It's hard to predict how this unprecedented and aggressive move will play out, and how exactly “news” will be defined for users. One thing is certain: corporate tech is flexing its muscles to maintain obscene profits at the expense of the public good.
Already, some media organizations in Canada – including the progressive independent outlets that we rely on to learn what’s going on in our city, continent, and world – are being blocked from posting on Facebook and Instagram. Next will be users! In the coming weeks, individuals and organizations in Canada will be prevented from seeing or sharing news links on Meta platforms.
This billionaire power-move is a “gut punch” to independent media and a disaster for access to information. It means more people will know less about what is actually happening!
What can you do about it?
This is a wake-up call to all of us to spend less time on corporate-owned and -controlled platforms, and more time engaging directly with independent news and analysis that can deepen our awareness of important power dynamics, help us understand the world around us, and inform our organizing to transform it!
Here are a few news outlets that SURJ Toronto members rely on and appreciate. We encourage you to visit their websites directly; subscribe to magazines, newspapers, podcasts, and newsletters; and support the journalists you rely on, by donating and spreading the word!
If we missed your favourite, email us at surjto@gmail.com and help us build this living resource!
APTN: APTN is the first national Indigenous broadcaster in the world and has served Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Canadian audiences for over two decades. During this time, the network has steadfastly adhered to its mission: To share our Peoples’ journey, celebrate our cultures, inspire our children and honour the wisdom of our Elders. Read, watch, and listen.
Briarpatch: Briarpatch is an award-winning magazine of politics and culture. Fiercely independent and proudly polemical, Briarpatch offers original reporting, insight, and analysis from a grassroots perspective. As a reader-supported publication, Briarpatch is not just devoted to reporting on social movements — it’s committed to building them. Read, subscribe, and support.
Canada’s National Observer: Canada's National Observer publishes investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, solutions journalism, multimedia features, opinion and daily news coverage. We pursue stories that seek to identify and explore problems in society. We also cover success and innovation to ensure that decision makers and members of the public are empowered to make informed choices. We have a special focus on how governments and industry make decisions as well as the factors that influence their policies. Read, subscribe, and support.
Canadaland: Canadaland is a news site and podcast network funded by its audience. We publish news, opinion and analysis, with a focus on Canadian media, current affairs, and politics. Subscribe to Canadaland Commons, canadaLANDBACK, or Thunder Bay, and support.
Indiginews: IndigiNews is a culturally-respectful, Indigenous-led online journalism publication where Indigenous people report on — and primarily for — Indigenous Peoples. We are one of the few Indigenous-led journalism outlets in the world, and we prioritize health and well-being, cultural safety and a decolonized mindset in everything that we do. Read, subscribe, and support.
Midnight Sun: Midnight Sun is a magazine of socialist strategy, analysis, and culture. Neither a news magazine nor a scholarly journal, Midnight Sun is a forum for writing that tries to bridge revolutionary theory and practice, that weds a deep curiosity about how the world works to an urgent interest in how we might organize most effectively for justice. Read and support.
PressProgress: PressProgress is an award-winning non-profit news organization focused on uncovering and unpacking the news through original investigative and explanatory journalism. Our journalism holds Canada’s rich and powerful accountable, exposes unfair and unhealthy working conditions, and shines a light on hate and bigotry. Read, subscribe, and support.
Rabble.ca: Rabble.ca an award-winning, independent, community-driven media. Among the first digital journalism organizations in Canada, and the first to incorporate as non-profit, rabble.ca has been at the forefront of reporting on national politics with a progressive lens that centres issues of social movements, of labour, and of grassroots activism. Read and support.
Ricochet Media: Ricochet is an audacious response to a difficult context. Independent, dedicated to investigative journalism and incisive opinion, Ricochet seeks to illuminate the cultural and political diversity within Canada. Ricochet is the product of collaboration between anglophones and francophones in a plurinational Canada, informed by an understanding of our colonial histories and supportive of contemporary Indigenous struggles. Read and support.
Sandy and Nora: Sandy and Nora Talk Politics is an experiment. Can radical politics be explained in digestible, engaging pieces? Can good faith debate lead us to better solutions? Can a podcast change everything that is rotten about Canada: our society, our economy and our politics? We think it can. Listen and support.
Spacing: Spacing Magazine uncovers the joys, obstacles and politics of Canada’s big cities by cutting through the cynicism that often pervades any discussion about urban issues. Spacing pushes readers to think critically about how they can shape the public spaces that surround their everyday lives. Read, subscribe, and support.
Spring Magazine: Spring is a magazine of socialist ideas in action, published by the Spring Socialist Network. Spring aims to learn from struggles, apply their lessons and socialist politics to building movements, and through the process build socialist organization. We seek to build movements based on working class struggle and anti-oppression, supporting Indigenous communities and low-carbon workers in the fight for climate justice, racialized workers in the Fight for $15 and Fairness, and newcomer communities in the fight for housing justice. Read and support.
The Breach: The Breach is an independent media outlet producing critical journalism to help map a just, viable future. We provide a platform for voices you won’t often find in the establishment media and investigations, analysis and video content about the crises of racism, inequality, colonialism, and climate breakdown. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Canada Files: We are a platform for critical investigation and analysis of Canadian foreign policy and the military-industrial complex. We are a proudly socialist, anti-imperialist news organization. Our primary goal is to investigate Canadian foreign policy. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Discourse: The Discourse provides community-powered journalism to underserved communities, currently focused on local news in the Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo, and the West Shore. We are boldly re-imagining journalism: how it is produced and delivered, how it is funded and most importantly, how it can serve communities. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Green Line: The Green Line is an award-winning, hyperlocal news outlet that investigates the way we live to help young and other underserved Torontonians survive and thrive in a rapidly changing city. Together, let’s breathe new life into Toronto’s conversations so we can build a livable city for all. Read and support.
The Grind: The Grind is Toronto's only free, city-wide, local politics and culture print magazine! The Grind covers the issues we’re facing, and it’s a window into Toronto’s vibrant arts and culture scene. In a city that isn’t working for transit users, renters, wage workers, those in and out of the shelter system, and so many more, The Grind reminds us that a better city is possible and worth fighting for. Read, find a copy, and support.
The Hoser: The Hoser is an independent digital media outlet that covers local news in the Greater Toronto Area. The Hoser’s content is, first and foremost, based in fact and accuracy. The Hoser aims to be accessible to young, racialized, and diverse people across the city, both as audience members and contributors. The Hoser will publish content that will analyze systemic issues and give voice to people who are directly affected by these issues who aren’t normally interviewed in mainstream news media. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Independent: The Independent is Newfoundland and Labrador’s premiere outlet for progressive news and ideas and dialogue, and we do it without the corporate funding that other media outlets depend on. Described as “the scrappy low-budget underdog of the local media scene, always up for a fight.” Read, subscribe, and support.
The Local: The Local is an independent magazine exploring urban health and social issues in Toronto. We take a data-driven, yet authentically human approach to storytelling on pressing issues facing the city, from poverty and homelessness, to mental health, aging, and food insecurity. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Media Co-op: The Media Co-op has been publishing grassroots journalism online since 2006, and its roots in The Dominion print publication go back even further. Today, we are small, national in scope, and online-only, and we are hard at work refining our role in this country's always-evolving independent media landscape. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Narwhal: We dive deep to tell stories about the natural world in Canada you can’t find anywhere else. We’re tired of false dichotomies and business-as-usual perspectives. We’re not shy about the fact we think Canada’s greatest assets are our people, our lakes, our rivers, our forests. We tell stories Canada’s big news outlets miss and hustle to help our readers make sense of complex (sometimes downright messy) issues. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Resolve: The Resolve is an independent Canadian media outlet centring, elevating and celebrating Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) voices and stories. We’re reimagining the traditional narrative, and bringing more than just surface change to journalism. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Rover: The Rover tells stories the government doesn’t want you to read. Stories about Indigenous communities up North, homeless camps under Montreal’s overpasses, immigrant communities affected by xenophobic laws, and police violence that puts a target on the backs of Black Quebecers. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Thorn: The Thorn is a newsletter by socialists from Vancouver, which provides a socialist perspective on issues and events that affect the Lower Mainland. We aim to contribute to the collective work of digging for the truth and telling the stories of the city from the bottom up. We need sharp – sometimes even prickly – criticism in order to think clearly about making a better world. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Tyee: We’re an independent, online news magazine from B.C. founded in 2003. We’re devoted to fact-driven stories, reporting and analysis that informs and enlivens our democratic conversation. Our reporting has changed laws, started movements and garnered numerous awards. While some journalism gives the last word to power, we try to give the last word to ordinary folks. Read, subscribe, and support.
The Maple: The Maple is an entirely reader funded publication that puts the working class first. We’re fiercely critical and dedicated to investigating stories and exploring ideas no one else will. Our reporting unpacks the key issues of the day and examines them from original angles that challenge the status quo. Meanwhile, our opinion team brings you thoughtfully argued ideas and perspectives that confront mainstream thinking. Read, subscribe, and support.
The West End Phoenix: West End Phoenix is a local periodical community newspaper for Toronto’s West End. devoted to telling the stories of diverse, compelling and quickly evolving neighbourhoods, from the Humber River to Spadina and beyond. WEP is a reimagining of the community newspaper with some of the country’s greatest writers and photographers articulating their experiences throughout their neighbourhoods. Read, subscribe, and support.
This Magazine: Fiercely independent and proudly subversive, the modern-day This acts as a critical, gutsy voice in today’s media landscape, dedicated to exposing under-the-radar stories and to publishing smart, progressive commentary and reporting on Canadian politics, pop culture, social issues, and the arts. Throughout the decades, This Magazine has stuck to its radical roots—never wavering in our editorial commitment to fearless, rabble-rousing journalism. Read, subscribe, and support.
Upping the Anti: A volunteer-run social movement journal based in Toronto (Dish With One Spoon Territory) since 2005. “Upping the Anti” refers to our interest in assessing the interwoven tendencies that define the politics of today’s radical left: anti-capitalism, anti-oppression, and anti-imperialism. Although inexact in their proclamations, these positions point toward a radical politics outside of the “party building” exercises of the sectarian left and the dead-end of social democracy. Read, subscribe, and support.
Xtra Magazine: Xtra is an online magazine and community platform covering LGBTQ2S+ culture, politics and health. We aim to break boundaries, think outside of binaries and build bridges within our communities and beyond. Read and subscribe.