There is no other speed in digital than full throttle, and so the first year has come and gone in a flash at The Huffington Post Canada. This week, we’re excited to mark our first birthday.
Behind the scenes, HuffPost Canada has been a hectic workplace. We’ve expanded to nine sections, launched Le Huffington Post Quebec and we have plans for editions in British Columbia and Alberta. The pace never ends as we charge forward.
Over the past year, we’ve been proud that our social news gathering has garnered new readers. We love having conversations with you and from watching our community grow, both in our comments and on social networks, you’re enjoying it too.
VIEW: OUR FAVOURITE HOME PAGES
We’re proud of the work we’ve done, from covering the NDP convention to seeing how our Mind the Gap series resonated and how our readers in Quebec wanted to talk about and share our stories about the student protests. The social initiatives (such as #citizenstyle) we’ve launched in our Living and Style sections have just been fun to watch unfold. In just our first year, we’re proud to have won a reporting award from the Canadian Association of Journalists for our labour coverage.
GALLERY: OUR MOST VIRAL STORIES
In our newsrooms in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, we have a group of passionate, talented and hard-working journalists. My favourite moment of the past year was to play a small part in building this team that does all the awesome work you see every day before and after our first birthday.
We have here some of our favourite front page splashes and best moments from our staff.
Kenny Yum, Managing Editor
SEE ALSO: OUR FAVOURITE BLOGS OF THE YEAR
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We asked HuffPost Canada editors and reporters for their favourite moments and highlights of the year. A selection of responses:
There are too many to count! I've been lucky enough to play a part in all the launches, from HuffPost Canada to Living to Style to HuffPost Quebec (and a small role in HuffPost Travel). There's nothing like seeing everyone's hard work come to life and watching the public respond to it. That, and meeting Arianna of course. --Lisa Yeung, lifestyle managing editor
It’s been a year of so many highlights, but two stand out for me. The first was MP Charlie Angus’ blog on Attawapiskat. It was an opinion piece with a video and a few strong images on a topic that had, until that moment, barely registered in the mainstream media. Suddenly the blog was being socially shared by the thousands. You could see the power of the HuffPost platform in action as it gave voice to thousands of digitally plugged-in Canadians who cared about what was happening to this First Nation community in Ontario. That’s all it took to make Attawapiskat a national story that no one in Ottawa could ignore.
The other highlight for me has been our daily interaction with our readers. It’s a rare and special thing in the news media business to feel like you have a close relationship with your audience. At HuffPost, our readers are equal partners in what we do and it’s such a pleasure to experience the news with them. Be it the emails we exchange with readers who flag corrections in our stories, to our witty Twitter following, to our fantastic Facebook debaters, it’s been a privilege getting to know them. --Brodie Fenlon, senior news editor and "Day 1" veteran
HuffPost Canada Style launched in December, so the site's relatively new, but we've crammed a ton into only a few months of life. We've covered everything from Toronto Fashion Week to awards shows -- we've even highlighted the style of people and politicians at the NDP convention. We've also been at the forefront of breaking style news, being the first news source to reveal Bell Media cancelled the long-time show Fashion Television. We've even established popular franchises, including "Put To The Test" and "Minute 16." From engaging the public with the interactive #CitizenStyle feature to discussing fashion trends on Keek, Facebook and Twitter, we're engaging Canada's style audience in a fresh new way. --Sarah Kelsey, style editor
Top one so far has to be being the last news organization left in the room at the NDP convention, working away while CTV News packed up loudly beside us. --Michael Bolen, politics editor
Working for The Huffington Post means I'm given opportunities I wouldn't have with other organizations -- like being one of only three media outlets allowed to interview Lance Armstrong when he was in Toronto (not to mention letting the interview run for 15 minutes longer than allotted) and having a candid Q&A with biographer Sally Bedell Smith before any other outlet.
It is both inspiring and fun to work at a company that takes work and play equally seriously -- the #snowballfight and #myspring were great ways to show how news organizations can use social media for engagement without always being about the stories, and give us a chance to have a great time with our readers. --Rebecca Zamon, living editor
Certainly the proudest moment for HuffPost Canada Business had to be Rachel Mendleson winning the award for labour reporting at the Canadian Association of Journalists Awards.
For me as business editor, I am particularly proud of Mind The Gap, the series on income inequality from which Rachel's award-winning article came.
Through Mind The Gap, HuffPost has delved deeper into income inequality issues in Canada than any major media source has in recent memory.
Not to mention, the series has been a great way to have fun, both for us in the newsroom and for our readers. Aside from hard-hitting investigations into economic segregation, we've also spotlighted the crazy things rich people are spending money on, including the most expensive houses for sale in the country; we've reported on how social status changes your genes' expression; and discovered that rich people are likelier to cheat than the poor.
And the best part of all? Knowing that this was only our first year, and it's all only just begun! --Dan Tencer, business editor
Working on not one, but two breaking stories at our Christmas party. --Ron Nurwisah, news editor and community manager
Nothing beats when a front page splash sends chills up your spine. Some splashes can seem perfunctory or rushed, but others have a perfect play on words or imagery that puts the emotion in a story right in the reader's face. That's something that other sites just can't (or won't) do. The only experience that comes close to it is when a blogger hits one out of the park -- I'm often in awe of the talent that has appeared on the left rail since day one. --Jacqueline Delange, associate editor
Even though I started as a newbie grad and intern, I had the chance to write some of the most exciting and researched stories for the Huffington Post Canada. When we launched Living in September, I wrote a story about women leadership failing in Canada. In fall, we also wrote a feature on skin bleaching -- an issue that I've been passionate about for years. Covering Fashion Week, having tea with Oprah's crew and interviewing the Survivorman are some of my favourite highlights. --Arti Patel, associate living editor
My proudest moment at HuffPost was winning the Canadian Association of Journalists' inaugural labour reporting award. I was really nervous throughout the awards ceremony and my acceptance speech (I still don't really know was I said!) but having so many coworkers there was amazing. We had by far the most fun table and I will never forget how psyched everyone was to win, and how quickly they got the word out on Twitter and our site. The fact that so many more folks came out to celebrate after the gala is a testament to the awesomeness that is our team. --Rachel Mendelson, business reporter
SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE SPLASHES
OUR MOST VIRAL STORIES