Canada has space for more news publications
Three years into founding Canadian Affairs, Lauren Heuser shares what motivated her to launch a media organization and what she’s learned about how Canadians read the news.
Lauren Heuser is the owner, publisher and editor of Canadian Affairs, an online news platform she founded with her husband, Chetan Raina. On July 1, Canadian Affairs marked its third anniversary. “We are starting to get a little more settled and stable and recognized as a brand in Canada,” said Heuser. Christian Courier interviewed Heuser to find out more.
Matthijs Kronemeijer: Tell me, what was your career life like before you founded Canadian Affairs?
Lauren Heuser: More conventional, I’d say. I started my career in corporate law. I got the media bug a little late in life. I left law to do a journalism fellowship at the University of Toronto. That [program] was for people who were already professionals in another discipline who had a real interest in writing. And that changed the trajectory of my career.
I ended up getting a job at the National Post as an editor, but I was finding that period of freelancing really stressful. So as a backup, I did my MBA. A few years later, I decided to launch Canadian Affairs.
MK: What gave you the confidence that this would be a good career move?
LH: I was canvassing the Canadian media market and came to the realization that you don’t need tens of thousands of subscribers to make a small media organization work. And I was of the view that the market for high-quality journalism in Canada was not saturated. Legacy publications have all struggled with cuts in various ways. So I felt that there was an opportunity.
I don’t think journalism is an industry one wants to be in if you want to make a lot of money. But I felt it was true to my passion.
Canadian Affairs. (Photo credit: Lauren Heuser).
I’ve always been really interested in public policy and social issues. Journalism is a very important way through which social issues get discussed and understood and explored: how, ultimately, policy gets shaped in Canada. I’m not interested in being in politics, but the media plays a role in shaping policy. And so that kind of passion is what drove this crazy decision to launch a media company.
MK: Three years into Canadian Affairs, are you satisfied with where you are now?
LH: Yes, I’m satisfied to be reporting on important social issues that are under-covered. I ask myself every Saturday when we put a newsletter out: Are these stories that you wouldn’t find in all the other publications? For the most part, I really do think that’s the case. I think we are offering something that is valued. We see that in our growth in the newsletter and the engagement of people with the newsletter. I’m proud of that. So I am encouraged, but I’m also kind of in the trenches and every day brings its own challenges.
One of the things my husband is really helpful with is getting me out of the weeds. It’s important to stay focused on the long-term roadmap of where you’re trying to go and not worry too much about the day-to-day.
MK: I’m interested in what this has done to your development as a couple – these last three years and everything that came before.
LH: It has not broken our marriage up! I’m sure there would be counsellors who would say, “Don’t ever start a business together.” That has not been the case for us. My husband has his own job, but he has as much of a passion for reading the news as I have. We both love discussing what’s happening, what could be an interesting story idea for a reporter to work on, or what’s an interesting editorial idea for me to write on.
MK: What is a key topic that Canadian Affairs has reported on in a unique way?
LH: Our reporter Meagan Gillmore was really out in front on the issue of medical assistance in dying (MAID). There has been a real sea change in how Canadians approach end of life and MAID is a big part of that. Canada has one of the most permissive regimes in the world now for MAID, and that happened really quickly. There wasn’t a lot of critical reporting of our regime and some of the risks around it until Meagan started that as a beat. And now we’ve seen a lot of other publications cover it quite extensively. She’s been told by those reporters that it was her reporting that got them onto that beat themselves. So I think we’ve been a leader in that space.
MK: You also cover religion news. Tell me more about that?
LH: I myself grew up in a very religious community in southern Manitoba. And so, again, to go to this point of identifying overlooked important social issues, John Longhurst and Meagan and I would all agree that religion is an under-covered topic. It does motivate and animate a lot of Canadians in terms of how they see politics, what they do and how they spend their money. And so from the outset, I had the view that this was an under-covered and important topic we should focus on.
MK: What marks a news organization as credible in Canada?
LH: There are certain journalistic practices they abide by: how information is sourced, corrections, balance. This is so important, you know, ensuring balance and really thinking as the editor: Is there another voice that we need to make this piece balanced?
There’s been a big shift towards government funding of news organizations. People are legitimately worried about the influence on independence and how that affects coverage. So those are all factors, but it’s also the consistency over time, and that’s been our focus in our first couple of years. Day in, day out, you put in the time on every story, even if you don’t think it’s going to get a ton of reads. Because it’s the body of work that becomes trusted over time more than any one story.
MK: What does a healthy news ecosystem in Canada look like? Where are we, and how do we get where we want to be?
LH: I’m not as worried as some people about the demise of news. I just think it’s a much more fragmented news environment than before. In my case, I’ll be checking maybe 10 different news sources on a weekend when I’m reading the news. But in my view, a healthy landscape is really where you have a diversity of outlets that cover the full political spectrum. Bigger publishers as well as smaller players who bring an important voice and perspective to the landscape.
I worry that local publications have disappeared. I don’t know that you can have a super healthy landscape when small communities don’t have their own outlets. I don’t worry too much about the bigger cities in Canada.
MK: Anything that you wanted to add for Christian Courier readers?
LH: If they’re interested in reading us, they can just head to our website and sign up for our newsletter. I certainly appreciate the interview and the opportunity to speak with you.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Thank you for this interview. I, too, think there is room for much more responsible journalism, especially at the local level. Our regional newspaper has one reporter and an editor who is only a part-time resident (as far as I can tell).
I’ve written some broadsheets about what might be called ‘minor items’ or features and printed them myself at home and left them at places at which people sit down and eat or wait in a waiting room. Age and lack of sufficient money prevents me from writing more of these, but perhaps most significant is the lack of a strong sense of community that desires good local journalism enough to speak up about it and to protest existing structures. (In my opinion, of course.)