The Narwhal’s response to the fallout from Canada’s Online News Act has taken home an innovation award from the Institute for Nonprofit News, a network of more than 450 independent media organizations that includes only a handful of Canadian members.
The INNovator Award, which The Narwhal won in the medium division, highlights work that has a positive financial impact on a newsroom and will help serve its community or audience into the future.
Last summer, when the federal government passed the Online News Act, Meta and Google both threatened to block all news content for users in our country. Instead of panicking, we saw an opportunity to start building more direct relationships with our audience.
Those efforts turned out to be pretty successful: thousands of you signed up for our newsletter and hundreds became members of The Narwhal.
The honour from the Nonprofit News Awards recognizes the efforts of co-founder Carol Linnitt, audience engagement editor Karan Saxena and, well, me, our director of audience.
It’s a thrill to earn this award for finding ways to not only survive, but thrive, as a sustainable news organization in turbulent times.
Despite platforms like Facebook and Instagram permanently blocking news in Canada, The Narwhal’s journalism is being read by more people than ever — all while being supported by a growing number of members, now counting 6,500, who support us with a monthly or annual donation.
(You can hear more about how we’re connecting with audiences in this interview I did with CBC’s On The Coast.)
The fellow INNovator Award finalist in the medium division was Documented NY, for its audience research to connect with Caribbean and Chinese immigrants of New York.
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