Inside The Narwhal

How to stay connected with climate news in Canada

We can no longer see our own Instagram feed. At a time when climate reporting is more important than ever, threats by social media giants won’t stop us from reaching our readers

By Karan Saxena

July 20, 2023 2 min. read

This article is more than 1 year old

I can no longer see posts, stories or The Narwhal’s own feed from our Instagram account.

As some of you may know, I’m The Narwhal’s audience engagement editor and it’s part of my job to interact with readers like you about all of our award-winning reporting. So it’s a problem when someone blocks me from doing that job.

It’s not a quandary I’m facing alone; outlets like the CBC, Chatelaine, The Tyee, The Breach and others have recently written about similar experiences. “People in Canada can’t see your content,” a message reads, as part of testing being done by Meta to simulate what the platform would look like without Canadian news.

You’ve read all about it, but here’s the short version: Google and Meta have said they will block Canadian news content for readers in Canada — on Instagram and Google products like Search, Discover and News — in response to the federal government’s Online News Act, a law that requires tech giants to negotiate deals with news outlets and pay for featuring news content on their platforms.

This means all recent stories you might have read — Yukon First Nations adopting a youth climate plan; how an Olympic coach is teaching young racialized women to swim; or what causes wildfires — will no longer be available on apps you use most on your smartphones.

We know people across Canada are worried. Not only have we heard it firsthand, but a recent poll by Angus Reid Institute suggests about 63 per cent of readers are concerned about what those smartphone apps, that are a part of so many people’s daily routine, will look like once the law comes into effect.

Even if you miss seeing us on your feed, we won’t go anywhere. After all, The Narwhal was born to produce in-depth environmental journalism in Canada — which can often feel dark and hopeless — to find hope and imagine what’s possible for the natural world.

And as this tug-of-war plays out, we haven’t lost that hope.

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So how can you make sure you don’t lose sight of The Narwhal’s reporting?

Sign up for our weekly newsletter (and tell your friends to subscribe, too!)
Follow us on Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky
Follow our channels on Apple News, Flipboard or any other app you get your news from
Add us to your homepage:

A screenshot demonstrating how to add a web page to home screen on an iPhone — Tap the share button on the bottom of the page and scroll down to “Add to Home Screen.” Screenshot: Karan Saxena / The Narwhal

A screenshot demonstrating how to add a web page to home screen on an Android phone — Tap the share button on the bottom of the page and scroll down to “Add to Home Screen.” Screenshot: Karan Saxena / The Narwhal

Have more suggestions for The Narwhal’s reporting to reach more people despite threats by social media giants? Email me at karan@thenarwhal.ca.

Like a kid in a candy store

When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?

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