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The Local (magazine)

The Local
TypeNews Website
FormatOnline Newspaper
Founded2019 (2019)
HeadquartersToronto, Ontario, Canada
ISSN2817-4720
Websitethelocal.to

The Local is a Toronto-based general interest online magazine covering urban health and social issues. It was founded in 2019 as a not-for-profit organization, with Tai Huynh, Nicholas Hune-Brown, Jen Recknagel and Craig Madho as its founding editorial team.[1] The Local publishes mostly long-form features, investigations and essays on a quarterly basis. From 2017 to 2019, The Local was a hyper-local storytelling project incubated at UHN OpenLab, a design and innovation studio at the University Health Network.[2][3]

The Local is known for blending human-interest stories with data journalism, most notably during the COVID-19 pandemic when it published five issues dedicated to exploring the pandemic's impact on Toronto communities.[4]

In 2021, The Local began tracking and reporting COVID-19 outbreaks in schools. They maintained a regularly updated data blog called the School Tracker to inform parents of the relative COVID risk in various schools throughout the GTA.[5][6] On January 1, 2022, in response to this emerging data gap, The Local launched the RAT Tracker, a portal where parents could report the results of their children's rapid antigen tests (RAT).[7] Using this data, they would compile COVID cases on a school level in Toronto in order to equip parents, students, and education staff with the information they need to be safe when returning to school.[8][9][10][11]

The Local is a member of Press Forward, a collection of independent Canadian publications dedicated to unifying, elevating, and advocating for independent media organizations and working towards strengthening innovation, inclusivity and diversity in media across Canada.[12]

  1. ^ Watson, H. G. (July 22, 2020). "The Local Was Born in a Hospital Network: The Web-Magazine is Bringing Longform Urban Health and Social Issues Journalism to Toronto". Indiegraf.
  2. ^ "The Local: X-Lab — The Future of Healthcare is Local". OpenLab. University Health Network.
  3. ^ Waldman, Benjamin (April 18, 2018). "Inside the Business: Covering Toronto's Health From a Local Perspective". Review of Journalism. Ryerson University.
  4. ^ Johnson, Jessica (December 13, 2021). "Journalism's Wicked Problem: Save What's Lost or Invest in What's New? It Will Take Serious Policy Changes and Unprecedented Industry Collaboration to Turn Around the Story of the Media's Collapse". The Walrus. The Walrus Foundation.
  5. ^ Alfa, Ismaila. "COVID-19 Cases Steadily Rise in Ontario Schools Just One Week Into the Academic Year: Tai Huynh, Editor-in-Chief of the Local, and Colin Furness, Infection Control Epidemiologist, Break Down What's Behind the Number of Cases in Schools Right Now". CBC Radio. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  6. ^ Huynh, Tai; Roy, Inori (10 March 2022). "Tracking COVID-19 in Toronto Schools: A Data Blog About the Pandemic's Effects on the City's 800 Public Schools". The Local.
  7. ^ Huynh, Tai; Madho, Craig (January 2022). "RAT Tracker: A Citizen-Powered Tool for Anonymous Reporting of Rapid Antigen Test Results in Toronto Public Schools". The Local.
  8. ^ Burman, Dilshad (January 3, 2022). "Independent Group Tracking Rapid Test Results in Toronto Schools". CityNews. Rogers Sports & Media.
  9. ^ Hiscox, Heather. "New Toronto Initiative Tries to Track Results of Students' Rapid Antigen Tests: A Toronto website has created a tool to collect results of COVID-19 rapid antigen tests (RAT) used by students to see if the data can be used to identify virus outbreaks". CBC.ca. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  10. ^ "Toronto Dad Creates Portal for Parents to Log Kids' Positive COVID Results". Global News. Corus Entertainment. January 5, 2022. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  11. ^ Lavoie, Joanna (January 8, 2022). "New 'Rat Tracker' Tool Aims to Help Parents Better Understand How COVID-19 is Impacting Toronto Schools: Some Ontario Health Units Collecting Rapid Antigen Test Results, but There is No Central Reporting System". The Toronto Star. Torstar. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  12. ^ "Member Highlights — From the Local: A Year in Toronto". Press Forward. March 22, 2021. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
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