History

Taproot Publishing Inc. was founded in 2017. But the story begins long before that.

Co-founders Mack Male and Karen Unland started talking about improving local journalism at events such as ChangeCamp in 2009 and MediaCamp in 2010, when Karen was the digital editor at the Edmonton Journal, and Mack was a software engineer with a popular blog focused on civic affairs. They kept the conversation going, through Karen's decision to leave the Journal newsroom in 2011, as well as a lot of community involvement on Mack's part.

In January of 2016, Postmedia merged the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun newsrooms as part of a consolidation of broadsheet and tabloid properties that also happened in Calgary, Ottawa, and Vancouver. In Edmonton, that meant the loss of about 30 jobs and the departure of several newsroom leaders. This shifted Mack and Karen's mindset from "let's keep talking about this" to "let's do something."

They came up with Taproot Edmonton, a source of local "how-and-why" journalism inspired by the curiosity of members and funded by membership fees. A gardening metaphor felt apt, and the concept of a taproot was appealing — things like radishes and carrots grow well in Edmonton, and they're good for you, but they also taste good.

They put up a landing page and soft-launched the idea at an event called Journalist Interrupted at MacEwan University on May 26, 2016, followed by a post on Mack's blog the next day. Enough people agreed to become members in those very early days to encourage them to keep going.

Members could plant the seed of a story idea by asking a question in the "Story Garden"; if other members were also curious, a storyteller would be assigned to pursue the answer, which Taproot would then publish. Their first story — South Edmonton's surprising deer paradise — was published on Sept. 8, 2016.

They built enough momentum to earn a spot at Startup Edmonton's Launch Party, the annual showcase of promising ventures, on Oct. 20, 2016. "We don't sell eyeballs, and we don't put up paywalls," they said in their pitch, expressing a desire to bake in service to community from the start (while still recognizing that the money to pay journalists has to come from somewhere).

Persuaded that they were indeed onto something, they incorporated Taproot Publishing on Jan. 12, 2017. Inherent in that decision was the idea that perhaps Taproot Edmonton would not be the only publication. If they could solve the problem here in Edmonton, perhaps they could solve it elsewhere, too.

Early experiments and new revenue streams

Taproot continued to publish stories and sell memberships, but the metabolism was slow. One story every few weeks was not going to replace what was being lost. Both Mack and Karen had seen some success curating information on a certain topic on their respective blogs, as had Mack's wife Sharon Yeo on hers. That kind of concerted attention-paying on a regular cadence seemed like a good way for Taproot to provide more value. In 2018, they launched the Tech Roundup, a newsletter gathering items of interest to Edmonton's technology and innovation community. Several others would follow.

That year also saw the launch of Speaking Municipally, a weekly podcast that Mack started with Troy Pavlek as a well-informed though somewhat irreverent take on civic affairs. The podcast went on to win a Canadian Online Publishing Award for 2019, and has been shortlisted several times for the Canadian Podcast Awards. Troy left the show in 2025, but it carries on as an integral part of Taproot's coverage.

The weekly roundups not only offered more value for members and a way to attract more readers, but they also created an opportunity to introduce another revenue stream through sponsorship and advertising. Traffic to taprootedmonton.ca was not really high enough to sell display ads against, but selling sponsorships in the newsletters made sense — the sponsors could be seen to be encouraging this kind of attention-paying, while getting their brands in front of smart, engaged Edmontonians. As readership grew, advertising in individual editions also became attractive.

The success of the roundups led to one more revenue stream. Organizations wanted their own roundups of news about their communities or topics of interest. This led to the creation of the Taproot Spotlight, a briefings service based on the same technology and methodology used to produce the roundups. This brought in revenue that was reinvested into the journalism side of Taproot, and made it possible for Taproot to be Mack's full-time job starting in 2019, and Karen's by mid-2020. Spotlight also earned Taproot a nomination for Business Idea of the Year from LION Publishers, which represents local, independent, online news outlets throughout North America.

Taproot outgrew the Story Garden, though it revived the idea of satisfying the community's curiosity during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic with a microsite to answer questions and a timeline to track key events. Though the pandemic was enormously disruptive to every facet of society, Taproot weathered the storm relatively well. People needed information and connection, and Taproot was there to provide it.

Growth and recognition

On Jan. 18, 2021, Taproot officially launched The Pulse, a weekday newsletter to complement the suite of weekly roundups. It would become the chief way to distribute Taproot's original stories, while providing readers with summaries of the latest news, as well as a little bit of delight along the way. Being aimed at a broader audience, The Pulse soon eclipsed the more focused weekly roundups in terms of readership and established itself as Taproot Edmonton's flagship product.

The 2021 municipal election provided an opportunity to provide even more value to the community. Grounding their work in Jay Rosen's concept of the "citizens' agenda" and building on an idea from The City in New York, the team created the Taproot Survey, a multiple-choice questionnaire for candidates based on the issues that mattered to voters. Taproot invited candidates to answer the questions, then opened the survey to voters so they could see who aligned with them best. The survey provided a novel and useful centrepiece for Taproot's election coverage, earning a nomination for journalism innovation and laying the groundwork for an even more powerful iteration in 2025. The 2025 election project was shortlisted for several awards.

All of this and the successes to come were accomplished by a dedicated team that went far beyond the ability or capacity of Mack and Karen alone. A growing team required a strong culture. LION Publishers recognized the beginning stages of that work with a nomination for an Operational Resilience award in 2023. Through much change, Taproot continues to strive to look after the people who do the work and live up to the company's core values of curiosity, courage, and care.

Seeing a need for a comprehensive list of events happening in the Edmonton region, Taproot launched the Taproot Edmonton Calendar in 2024. This created yet another way to pay attention to what goes on in our community, acting both as a stand-alone event listing and the source of all of the "happenings" listed in Taproot's various newsletters.

Also in 2024, Taproot published Housing Complex, an in-depth look at what works, what doesn't, and what can be done to improve Edmonton's housing system. This project, undertaken in partnership with the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness and partly funded by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, earned a Collaboration of the Year award from LION Publishers.

That year saw Taproot officially recognized as a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization. This briefly made paying members eligible for a tax credit, but more importantly, it opened up opportunities for grants and tax credits that have provided some additional stability. Taproot also joined Press Forward, adding its voice to those of fellow independent media outlets in Canada.

Looking ahead

Ten years in, Taproot Edmonton remains relentlessly focused on the Edmonton region and determined to continue to provide reliable intelligence about this place. Thousands of people rely on Taproot to tell them what's going on and to pay attention to what they're up to. Mack and Karen did not know what that seed planted in 2016 would grow into, but they found fertile ground and lots of help to cultivate, and the entire Taproot team looks forward to what the next decade and beyond will yield.