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A Few Words About Toronto, and a Few About Torontoist
Photo by Victoria Marshall.
Toronto is still deciding what kind of city it wants to be. It’s a place of such immense variety—in built form, in its residents and their daily routines, in economic activity, in cultural expressions, in neighbourhoods. It can make your head spin: a glorious but also sometimes fractured jumble of energy and activity.
Torontoist is a little like that, too: a vibrant, eclectic medley that is on its way to what it will become, but it hasn’t entirely arrived yet. Over the past few years we’ve grown both bigger and more ambitious, shifting towards primarily original reporting, developing in-depth features, and expanding our scope.
Because it’s a new year, and because I’m lucky enough to be Torontoist’s new editor, I wanted to take a few moments to talk about what comes next.
If you’re already a fan and follower of the site: fret not. Though publications somehow seem to inevitably change with their editors, no radical changes are in the works. I’m hugely proud to have been a part of Torontoist for the last two years, and its strengths—sharp writing, heartfelt storytelling, and relentless curiousity about Toronto—will remain just that. The essence of this site, its DNA, is bigger than any editor.
We will continue to develop and stretch ourselves: we’ll experiment with new content areas and try to expand the range of media we use; explore the boundaries of our hybrid sometimes blog–, sometimes magazine–style publication; try some things on for size and see how we fare. And if all goes well I hope to be able to say, in a little while, that Torontoist is truly as diverse as Toronto, that our staff and our stories represent the breadth and depth of life in this city we all love but often experience in different ways.
If you are new to Torontoist: welcome. I hope you find an online community here—among the writers, photographers, illustrators, editors, and readers—that helps bring Toronto to life for you.
I’m also thrilled to introduce you to our new deputy editor, Meg Campbell. Meg is tireless, Meg has the proverbial eagle eye, and Meg is deft at gently editing writers’ prose while keeping their voices fully intact. She was, in fact, a copy editor at Torontoist for nearly two years, and I’m so glad she’s accepted our invitation to return.
Finally, I’d like to send the warmest congratulations to outgoing editor David Topping. It would be impossible to overstate how much work he’s put into Torontoist over the years, and I know he’ll bring the same dedication to his new gig at OpenFile.
Torontoist, at its core, is a collective attempt to capture the tenor and texture of life here, to evoke the daily experience of the city in words and images. Our goal—still and always—is to be faithful in our rendering of Toronto and fearless in advocating for what we think might make it better.
I welcome your thoughts and feedback about what we’re doing well, how we can improve, and the ways you’d like to see us grow.
Most of all: thank you for reading.
Hamutal Dotan
Editor-in-Chief