Tyee Ramps up Election Coverage

Thanks to you, our readers, we've assembled B.C.'s best political reporting team to keep you informed on the provincial election. To stay plugged in, you'll want to come back to The Tyee's home page and its political blog The Hook many times a day.

In the past 10 days, we've run 56 election stories. Already we've spotlighted key swing ridings; explained the big split among enviros and why welfare is broken; caught Plutonic Power's CEO waffling about his political donations, revealed Suzuki Foundation's chairman is a proud Liberal; introduced you to feisty independent and Conservative candidates; and chronicled Vancouver Mayor Robertson's love/hate relationship with Gordon Campbell.

But now we're pouring it on. Here's a user's guide to how we're ramping up our coverage between now and voting day, May 12.

Double the coverage. On a normal day we've run one or two feature articles about political issues. From here on out, expect three or four a day. Look for in-depth reporting on the environment, government ethics, poverty, education, voting reform and other issues you've told us matter most to you. That's just the main course....

We've loaded up the Hook. True political junkies will want to check The Hook hourly for breaking news, fresh analysis and quick hits on what bloggers and other media are buzzing about. Look there for the latest from The Tyee team and friends like Sean Holman, Frances Bula and new contributors across the province. Also, 24 Hours reporters Irwin Loy, Bob Mackin and Dharm Makwana along with dispatches from The Canadian Press. Remember The Tyee's "Election Central" blog, a must-read during the 2005 B.C. election? The Hook is its replacement: bigger, faster, more diverse, and edited once again by The Tyee's award-winning Investigative Editor Monte Paulsen.

Our top-notch team. Just when Big Media is cutting budgets, we've built a dream team of reporters and commentators. To name a few: Tyee Legislative Bureau Chief Andrew MacLeod; contributing editors Will McMartin, Tom Barrett, Crawford Kilian, Charles Campbell and Heather Ramsay; columnists Rafe Mair and Bill Tieleman; reporters Geoff Dembicki, Garrett Zehr, Morgan Modjeski and Colleen Kimmett. Bonus: Your ticket to ride the Campbell and James busses -- we've partnered with The Canadian Press to publish their reports from the Liberal and NDP leaders' road shows.

You empowered this effort. We're able to do all this, of course, because Tyee readers have so generously donated to our Election Issues Reporting Fund. As of Thursday morning, April 16, you've given more than $19,000! We're still tabulating the results, and on Monday I'll share the final total and how your issues broke down. We are immensely grateful and, as you see, are already putting those resources towards coverage of the issues you told us are most important to you.

Please bookmark The Tyee and our political news blog The Hook, check in regularly, and post comments to enrich the discussion after the pieces we publish. We welcome your support, and are working hard to deliver what you demand and deserve as an engaged citizen preparing to cast an important ballot on May 12.

Related Tyee stories:

• Election Central filters all provincial election coverage published on the Hook, The Tyee's political news blog. It's the place to go for just blog items about the election.
• BC Votes '09 filters all Tyee feature story election coverage. It's the place to go for just stories that appeared on The Tyee home page.