Hi there,

I’m writing to you today with an update regarding The Discourse’s Comox Valley coverage. After 1.5 years of providing in-depth environmental reporting and weekly community newsletters, we have had to make the decision to pause our consistent coverage in the Comox Valley.

As you may already know, we launched The Discourse Comox Valley as a pop-up outlet after hearing from community members that there was a need for in-depth coverage in the region, particularly when it came to environmental issues.

We were able to provide this reporting thanks to financial support from the Government of Canada though its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allowed us to hire Madeline Dunnett, a fantastic reporter who is passionate about environmental reporting and who grew up in the Comox Valley. 

She has provided meaningful, impactful journalism that shines a light on local issues and lifts up positive stories and solutions in the community. Her reporting has brought much-needed context to topics such as shipbreaking in Union Bay, local restoration and conservation work and the impacts of climate change on a local level. 

Each year, the federal funding must be renewed to continue our Comox Valley coverage and at this point it’s unclear if it will be renewed long term.

With so much uncertainty around whether or not we’d be able to keep our Comox Valley coverage going, Madeline decided to take on different seasonal work for the spring and summer — and understandably so! We hope that if our funding is renewed on a more secure level, we’ll be able to welcome Madeline back to the team and resume our coverage in the region.

So what does this mean for you? For the time being, you’re not going to see regular coverage from the Comox Valley and our weekly newsletter and reporting will be paused. We are hopeful to be able to publish freelancer stories throughout the summer but updates from the Comox Valley will be sporadic.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to fund local journalism if you value it in your community.

There are no paywalls on The Discourse’s website and there is no fee to sign up for our newsletters because we believe in making news accessible to everyone. But that leaves us relying on community support and grants to keep our work going.

One day, I would love to say The Discourse is primarily funded by our communities and that we don’t need to rely on unpredictable grant funding, but that’s currently not the case. I’m optimistic, however, that if communities value their local news outlets and the services they provide — from investigations and community reporting to news and events roundups — they’ll pitch in to keep this work going.

To our Comox Valley readers: Thank you for sticking with us for the past 1.5 years. If our coverage doesn’t resume in the region, we hope you’ll still continue to follow and support The Discourse, whether that’s by signing up for our Nanaimo and Cowichan Valley newsletters, sharing our work with friends and family who might be interested in it or by visiting our website to check out our stories.