The Georgia Straight 

How can local journalism stay independent and true to its roots while technology is changing younger generations behaviours and news consumption?

Local journalism is having a hard time transitioning to the internet. There are new models of independent journalists, people doing work that’s based on their own analysis or interest-based thinking that there isn’t that strong of a model around today. 

The state of Canadian publishing is in crisis. Publishers are under financial pressure with the closure of dozens of newspapers and associated job cuts. Government initiatives to support local journalism and digital innovation may offer some relief but the media’s struggle to reinvent itself goes on.  

This case study looks at the future of journalism and how the industry is currently and needing to transform it's business practice and business models to appeal to the next generation of consumers. We interviewed locals who previously read The Georgia Straight, local journalists, and online surveyed 100 participants in the industry. Below are some of the findings.

Strategy
Branding

We are consuming news differently 

The world has seen many radical changes in technology that has changed the way we interact and move. Technology is the driver in which how we communicate and interact with one another. It also shapes what we value. This timeline provides a brief history of communication models.

A Rich History

The Georgia Straight was born in the 1960’s hippie movement at Cecil Hotel in Vancouver, Canada. Dan McLeod and a small group of friends wanted to write journalism on their own terms. This time was a political culture where you could reshape, rethink, and reimage the world. The Georgia Straight wasn’t afraid to bring political powers and power figures to justice. The newspaper was the most procescuted in Canadian history. The timeline below shows the number of transformations and challenges it has gone through time.