Will journalism survive? Be a part of keeping it alive.

Thanks for reading The Tyee today. If you’ll allow me, let me tell you a bit about what it’s like to run a journalism organization these days.

Sustaining and growing an independent newsroom in 2023 means fighting back against a wave of pressures in our industry. The advertising model that has traditionally supported journalism has been disrupted by social media and search platforms. And now, Canadian news is completely blocked on Facebook and Instagram in response to the Online News Act.

Decades of consolidation of ownership of newspapers means that many communities in Canada only have one news source, if that, and those newsrooms keep on getting gutted or shut down by their corporate owners.

What’s left to fill that vacuum is fluffy entertainment or dubious misinformation put out by shadowy figures. So the online world is more noisy than ever, but less and less of it is informed by fact-based reporting being put out by professional, credible journalists.

That’s the tide The Tyee has been swimming against for the past 20 years. Our non-profit newsroom only exists because thousands of readers support our work through our Tyee Builders program – a voluntary support program that funds our editorial budget and makes sure that we can pay experienced journalists to do reporting in the public interest and distribute it for free to anyone who wants to read it.

Together with our Tyee Builders, we’re fighting back against the forces that are conspiring against journalism

We’re aiming to bring on 500 new recurring supporters by Dec. 31 so we can sustain and grow our operations in 2024. Please join us today and sign up for a monthly or annual contribution at a level that works for you.

— Jeanette Ageson, Publisher

Click here to Join Tyee Builders

Will you help journalism thrive in 2024? Help us hit our goal of 500 new supporters by Dec 31.

Thanks for reading The Tyee today. If you’ll allow me, let me tell you a bit about what it’s like to run a journalism organization these days.

Sustaining and growing an independent newsroom in 2023 means fighting back against a wave of pressures in our industry. The advertising model that has traditionally supported journalism has been disrupted by social media and search platforms. And now, Canadian news is completely blocked on Facebook and Instagram in response to the Online News Act.

Decades of consolidation of ownership of newspapers means that many communities in Canada only have one news source, if that, and those newsrooms keep on getting gutted or shut down by their corporate owners.

What’s left to fill that vacuum is fluffy entertainment or dubious misinformation put out by shadowy figures. So the online world is more noisy than ever, but less and less of it is informed by fact-based reporting being put out by professional, credible journalists.

That’s the tide The Tyee has been swimming against for the past 20 years. Our non-profit newsroom only exists because thousands of readers support our work through our Tyee Builders program – a voluntary support program that funds our editorial budget and makes sure that we can pay experienced journalists to do reporting in the public interest and distribute it for free to anyone who wants to read it.

Together with our Tyee Builders, we’re fighting back against the forces that are conspiring against journalism

We’re aiming to bring on 500 new recurring supporters by Dec. 31 so we can sustain and grow our operations in 2024. Please join us today and sign up for a monthly or annual contribution at a level that works for you.

— Jeanette Ageson, Publisher

Click here to Join Tyee Builders
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Contributors

Christopher Cheung

Christopher Cheung is a staff reporter at The Tyee.

He is interested in the power and politics behind urban change, and how Vancouver’s many diasporas strive to make a home in a city with colonial legacies.

Cheung has reported on the mystery of the street vendor "baklava man," the social life of local Chinese malls, the right to public washrooms, food security in the Downtown Eastside, the “translator kids” of migrant families and the invasion of the colonial Himalayan blackberry.

In 2021, he won the Jack Webster Award — B.C.’s top achievement in journalism — for his reporting on how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected working-class immigrant neighbourhoods.

Cheung also occasionally writes personal essays. He’s documented his time living in Vancouver’s most-diverse neighbourhood, his family’s annual "grave sweeping" and a year-long investigation on the Instagrammers who came to take profile pictures on the rooftop outside his downtown window. His essay "Blind Spots,” on the lack of true ethnic and cultural representation in Canada media, won the 2021 Dalton Camp Award for best essay.

Cheung has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, with columns in the Vancouver Courier and Metro, where readers will remember his community stories on Duffin’s Donuts, Kingsgate Mall and Asian immigrant seniors with backyard farms. He was born and raised in Vancouver and still lives there.

He graduated with a master’s in journalism from the University of British Columbia in 2016. Find him on Twitter and Instagram, or visit his website.

News, Analysis & Commentary by Christopher Cheung