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Torontoist has no over-arching editorial stances.
We are not pro-advertising, or anti-advertising; we are not pro-graffitti, or anti-graffiti; we are not pro-corporation, or anti-corporation. Individual writers may have stances, but we, as a shared entity and a collective, do not, and that distinction between individual and group is an important one. No one person, the editors included, represent the entirety of our staff, nor is there any one "Torontoist Writer" mould that our staff fits into. We don't expect—or want—our staff or our readers to agree with everything that they see on Torontoist.
The use of an editorial "we" ("we" were at the store, "Torontoist" caught a movie last night) may be confusing, but it is a stylistic choice; not one that establishes group consensus (when we say "Torontoist didn't like that movie," we don't actually mean everyone on staff saw it and disliked it). On our about page, we proudly declare that "the diversity of [our] staff—spread across interests, opinions, age groups, income levels, and any other imaginable category—accounts for the diversity in our content and our readership." Our contributors have an enormous amount of freedom to express that diversity and say what they want to say, and are censored rarely, if ever.
Bias is a separate but nonetheless interrelated issue: we are, most often, dealing with personal opinions, not straight-up news. Some writers are more opinionated than others, but you, our readers, are all smart enough to judge the merits of their arguments yourself. Some of our staff are also members of organizations that are active in the city (the Green Party, Newmindspace, and the Toronto Public Space Committee, among other groups, all have someone on our staff), and those members are here as individuals to post about issues that are relevant to them. Unsurprisingly, those issues tend to be ones that they are involved with in our city, and there can be overlap between what they do and what they write. Rest assured, however, that Torontoist is under no-one's thumb (and, conversely, no-one is under Torontoist's), and that we will not deceive our readers.
Staff and readers are all welcome to agree or disagree with, or to question, or to praise what is published on Torontoist, and the comments on posts are where everyone gets to slug it out. We moderate comments only if they violate Gothamist's comment policy (which we are actually pretty lenient about enforcing). As always, we welcome feedback on all of our entries—including this one—either in the comments or (if you wish to state your opinion privately) via e-mails to individual writers or editors. We are fortunate to be on the internet, a medium that allows for instantaneous and (mostly) hassle-free participation, a medium where every voice is audible.
The end of the section on the diversity of our staff on our about page reads: "The readers and staff do...have some things in common: they're all smart, well-educated, and deeply passionate about our city." It is only the means to that shared end, that shared goal—a great Toronto—that we may disagree on. We're all pro-Toronto.
Sincerely,
David Topping and Marc Lostracco
Co-Editors-in-Chief, Torontoist
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If a writer is a member of an organization, are they allowed to write about issues relevant to that organization?
Are they asked to declare a conflict of interest?
In most newspapers, a reporter wouldn't be allowed to write about something that an organization they're a member of had a stake in.
I know Torontoist, and all web journalism, isn't as straight-forward as print journalism, so some clarity on your own policies would be appreciated.
Thanks.
"If a writer is a member of an organization, are they allowed to write about issues relevant to that organization?"
Yes. We want writers to be entities in and of themselves, but if they're voluntary members of an organization that is involved with issues that they care about, there is almost certainly going to be overlap between what the organization "cares about" and what the individual contributor does. We wouldn't (and we don't), for instance, discourage a writer involved in the Green Party from writing about environmental issues. We bring people on staff, in part, because they're involved in interesting things in our city. If you scroll through the staff page you'll see that pretty much everyone is up to cool stuff: we've got members of the Pillow Fight League; the aforementioned Newmindspace, Green Party, and Toronto Public Space Committee; artists, writers, photographers, etc., etc. A good number of our staff aren't really "journalists" in any traditional sense of the word, as they're less spectators and more engaged in what they are writing about.
"Are they asked to declare a conflict of interest?"
We are going to try to make it more obvious if a writer is involved in what they are writing about in any way that could be seen as a conflict of interest (this information is almost always available by going to our staff page; the only exception to the staff page rule are new writers, who have to reach a certain number of posts before they get put on our staff page). The last italicized lines of Jonathan Goldsbie's post on ONESTOP are a good example of us disclosing an author's relationship with the story.
I'd be curious to know what motivated this editorial letter. I very much enjoy reading the Torontoist, but do find that the blog posts tend to be from the same political mindset. In particular the articles about the recent street furniture bids were extremely one-sided. (That said, I happen to agree with most of the comments).
On my browser in the bookmarks menu bar, I have one section for News, which contains links to The Globe & Mail, CBC News, The Star, BBC News and The Guardian, among others; and a Blogs section that contains Spacing's Wire and Torontoist.
I think it's important that the readers understand that web blogs (I don't think it's fair to call Torontoist "journalism") tend to also have more specific audiences, as well, and many of the readers end up writing for the blog.
"I'd be curious to know what motivated this editorial letter."
The idea was that we didn't have a very clear declaration of editorial policy until this point, and as time has gone on and we've continued to grow, it's really become something that we need to set in stone and be upfront about. People were starting to get confused.
"I very much enjoy reading the Torontoist, but do find that the blog posts tend to be from the same political mindset.
....
I think it's important that the readers understand that web blogs (I don't think it's fair to call Torontoist "journalism") tend to also have more specific audiences, as well, and many of the readers end up writing for the blog."
I certainly agree that we're not practicing typical journalism, but we're also not quite a blog in the typical sense of that word. We're somewhere in between, a happy mixing of the two worlds.
You're also right that many of us do seem to be from the same rough political mindset. We'd welcome completely different viewpoints, but, to be honest, we rarely receive applications from people whose views differ from those that are most consistently set forth here. As you've said, our readers become our writers, and the cycle continues. The most important thing, though, is that no matter how consistent those views are (say, pro-biking), they aren't shared universally across the staff (I, for one, absolutely love to drive, and almost never bike).
Just wanted to mention off the top that I always enjoy clicking over to Torontoist and can't wait to see what the latest posts are.
That being said, I personaly like to keep the authors POV in the back of my mind, whenever I'm reading something from a blog type journal - as they can tend to be opinionated (and some of your posts are).
The fact that Torontoist spends a larger slice of time representing a smaller slice of voices in the community is important and helps to create a more united Toronto.
Keep up the great work!
On a more general note... This topic is an important one to remind readers of 'news sources' that ALL forms of journalism (blog, newspaper, etc) are coloured by individual authors' and editors' opinions. I appreciate online sources such as Torontoist and Spacing Wire because their biases are openly admitted and celebrated. I don't mean to sound too excited about the 'internet'... but.. the internet is so awesome BECAUSE individual opinions are now being heard: this is the democratization of information that we keep on hearing about. Information and news enthusiasts are finally being given enough credit to both read critically AND to contribute to what is being read. Bravo to Torontoist for compiling these opinions in one place!
I, for one, am completely happy with how the Torontoist deals with issues concerning events in and around the city. I guess I don't really add anything to the debate over this topic but I just thought I'd state my happiness with the work that goes into the Torontoist.
Please keep up the good work!
In my opinion there was no need to post this editorial. Anyone confusing a blog for a newspaper is making the mistake, it's not your job to correct them. I don't mind that all or most or some of the content here seems to come from the same corners, or that the same set of issues get more attention than other equally Toronto topics. It's not important to me to know that so-and-so also works with such-and-such organization.
If I didn't find Torontoist worth reading, I'd stop. I suggest the shit disturbers who provoked this move on to other, more agreeable blogs in the future.
Rek, I agree with you that if people don't like the style here, they can just move on. But if it's a matter of them not understanding what we do, I disagree that it's not our job to correct their mistakes. When I worked for my campus paper, there were very traditional delineations between news and opinion. Yet, people would still get angry with us over opinion columns, saying"You shouldn't that, it's your opinion" or call them biased. Well, yeah, that's the point of having an opinion. They didn't understand that the pieces with the picture of the writer's face in a little box and a column title were opinion columns. We even gave them different headline fonts eventually. It frustrated me to no end that people didn't get it. What's wrong with educating people a bit about what they're reading? If I could have smacked those people at my school and said, "Here's the difference between a news piece and an opinion column," I sure would have.
I understand your point, but this is still a blog. There should be a healthy expectation for personal opinion, rather than 'fair and balanced' reporting.
Rek, I think that having this document in existence is a good move, if only so that we can point to it in the future and say "here's how it works, if you didn't understand." The distinction between a blog and a newspaper is getting more and more muddied and I think that it's helpful for people to know, for certain, what our policies are.