Writing spotlight: Gold, NMA Long-Form Feature Writing: 6000+ / @thelocal.to @nickhunebrown.bsky.social Contributors: @chloeellingson.bsky.social , photographer; @wencyleung.bsky.social editor 🔗Learn more about the 2026 NMA winners: zurl.co/2lI5g #N#NMA26 #CanadianJournalism

Huge kudos to Betsy Powell from @thestar.com for her coverage of this atrocious case. The fact that this nightmare was allowed to happen is damning.

Womens sports are booming in Canada right now. But without female coaches at the helm, a generation of young athletes may miss out on the opportunity to learn a new way to play, writes @curiouslana.bsky.social. New from our sports issue: thelocal.to/womens-sport...

“If you have nothing to hide, what is the problem if your ministry reports are kept public?” More than a decade's worth of reports on long-term care conditions were just taken offline by the government. We've saved 10,000 of them, and we're making them accessible to all. thelocal.to/long-term-ca...

Sharing this one again. I wanted to write a how-can-you-not-be-romantic-about-baseball-style story about my beloved Maple Leafs, the professional-ish team that plays in the same playground as my 9-year-old. Then they signed former all-star/convicted criminal Yasiel Puig. thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

The Ford government just deleted every long-term care inspection report from before 2023 from their website, obfuscating a vital public record, especially from the devastating pandemic era. But we have 10,000 of those reports, and we're making them publicly available. thelocal.to/long-term-ca...

@nickhunebrown.bsky.social has done it AGAIN! He's written yet another story you can't put down thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

"Why was the team they loved signing a guy with sexual assault allegations who could be in jail in just weeks?" I also love to watch the Maple Leafs play at Christie Pits. @nickhunebrown.bsky.social has summed up the fans' dilemma beautifully

I wrote about my beloved baseball Maple Leafs signing Yasiel Puig. thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

A free game of professional-ish baseball at Christie Pits has long been the best summer activity in Toronto, writes @nickhunebrown.bsky.social Then the team signed former MLB star and convicted criminal Yasiel Puig: thelocal.to/yasiel-puig-...

7 local democracy hacks to not feel totally helpless in Doug Ford (& cipher-like Liberal MP caucus) Toronto. Finished on the throne of representative democracy for the people. My weekend @thestar.com column.

“The major barrier I’ve come up against is [medical] schools not wanting to put themselves out on the line, and risk blowback for teaching something that they think is controversial.” thelocal.to/trans-health...

I am terrified by the heat wave in Europe.

Since Doug Ford ordered the removal of speed cameras, Torontonians are speeding more - and dying more - on local streets. www.thestar.com/news/gta/spe...

Trans-inclusive health care is already hard to find in Ontario. Now, growing anti-trans rhetoric is making physicians more hesitant to get trained in gender-affirming care, experts tell @ziyajones.bsky.social. A new feature published in partnership with @script.health: thelocal.to/trans-health...

Dermatology may just be the “canary in the coal mine” of health care privatization. Journalist Rebecca Gao examines how stagnant public funding, doctor shortages, and growing demand for cosmetic treatments are reshaping access to skin care. https://ow.ly/8qTy50ZgJkZ

Oh, you're not into sports? That's ok! If you enjoy reading about people's quirky obsessions, you're gonna love this #longform story. thelocal.to/soccer-refer...

Both of my kids loved team sports but weren't 'athletic' in the competitive sense. They started being denied team sports participation at GRADE SIX in Canada's public schools. The same story for so many kids. Then we scratch our heads at childhood obesity. Imagine what message this sends?

So far, June has been a smorgasbord of great journalism at @thelocal.to. Catch up this weekend on stories about long-term care, the closure of safe consumption sites, Toronto's pre-colonial history, public education, the weird world of soccer refs, and the problem with youth sports thelocal.to

It makes me so happy to see one of my favourite people in Canadian journalism contributing to @thelocal.to thelocal.to/youth-sports...

Since last June, @wencyleung.bsky.social has been covering the Ford government's school board takeover for @thelocal.to. This is the clearest analysis I've read on the state of Toronto schools one year later. thelocal.to/one-year-tds...

The province promised to fix public education. A year into the Ford government's unprecedented takeover of Ontario school boards, @wencyleung.bsky.social writes, cuts are mounting, answers are scarce, and parents are getting angry. thelocal.to/one-year-tds...

I'm so happy to share that my 2025 feature on Ontario's worm industry won gold at the Canadian Association of Journalists awards and silver at the National Magazine Awards! What an honour. Thanks to the judges, my sources, the worms, and my wonderful team for allowing me to pursue this wacky story.

Congratulations @royinori.bsky.social! 🎉

This little team covers the GTA like no other. I'm grateful to be part of it. 🥰

Their uniforms are impeccable. They prance around with purpose. They are trained in how to whistle with maximum authority. Sam Rosati Martin on the monk-like devotion of the aspiring football ref. thelocal.to/soccer-refer...

Good morning, happy World Cup, please read this brilliant Sam Rosati Martin story about ambitious soccer refs striving to make it pro—self-serious, much-abused true believers without whom the game couldn't exist. #longreads #sundaylongread thelocal.to/soccer-refer...

#FYI "In 2018, the lowball estimate was $30-$45 million to host five games. That budget exploded to $380 millon for six games. For that price, you could build 20 new community centres across the city, almost one in every ward." - @michaeldeforge.bsky.social @thelocal.to @wencyleung.bsky.social

Wait, how much are we spending on reusable cups? @michaeldeforge.bsky.social and @wencyleung.bsky.social make sense of the costs and payoffs of hosting the World Cup in seven illustrations. thelocal.to/fifa-world-c...

In 2024, an Indigenous burial site was found during construction on Withrow Avenue, near Riverdale Park East. Where others see a “hole” in the ground awaiting investigation, journalist Gabrielle McMann sees a window into Toronto’s complex pre-colonial history. thelocal.to/toronto-arch...

Analysis by @royinori.bsky.social reveals that 30% of long-term care companies approved for redevelopment and expansion by the province have also been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for failures in care by the very same ministry. Wrapping up our latest issue: thelocal.to/long-term-ca...

In the final story from our long-term care mini-issue, we look to the future of elder care. The same homes found to have failed seniors during the pandemic and after it are now being permitted to grow and continue operating for decades to come: thelocal.to/long-term-ca...

Thrilled to win a National Magazine Award for my feature on horse racing! thelocal.to/breakdown-at...

Incredibly proud of this package. It was a lot of fun to make and the recognition is icing on the cake. Read it again here: thelocal.to/summer-2025/

Please read this stunning feature by Emma Paling. You've probably read stories about the closure of Toronto's safe consumption sites, but I promise you, not any like this. thelocal.to/moss-park-sa...

This story is the kind of work that made me want to become a journalist - to be able to bring to light an intimate, human story, something that few know about but that may in time affect all of us. I'm very grateful to my sources in this piece, who made room for me in the midst of their grief:

@royinori.bsky.social continues her phenomenal coverage of long-term care in Ontario. 🔊BTW, @thelocal.to introduces a new element: audio! Take a listen. (It's read by Inori herself; no robotic AI voices here!)

"As I put my compulsion into the world, and people began responding by texting me their own rabbit photos and tagging me in their posts, had I created my own deluded little bunny bubble?" @nickhunebrown.bsky.social for @thelocal.to: thelocal.to/more-rabbits...

At a time when governments are withholding data and information at every level, building an algorithm to scrape data from 17,500+ documents—with no AI—is an unparalleled skill. It's something not a lot of journalists in Canada can do. A privilege to team up with Xavi for a project of this scale!

@royinori.bsky.social started talking about this incredibly ambitious project months and months ago. Today, @thelocal.to is launching its Inspecting Long-Term Care issue, which she single-handedly wrote. It is phenomenal data journalism. thelocal.to/spring-2026/

EXCLUSIVE: In the wake of the pandemic, the Ford government set the target of one proactive inspection a year at every long-term care home. But our analysis of thousands of inspection reports reveals less than 40% of LTC homes received a proactive inspection in 2025. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

NEW — My first true foray into AI haterdom is about how those of us not convinced by AI’s inevitability are a real constituency worthy of a voice. Give it a read:

UPDATED: The IPC says she hasn't been given any official notification of the FOI freeze by the government and is relying on media reporting. She's tried to reach the government and hasn't heard back. “We will continue reaching out,” she said. #OnPoli globalnews.ca/news/1185920...

Hey! Canadian journalism jobs! The Narwhal is hiring a reporter in B.C. and one (almost) anywhere in Canada. We're looking for seasoned, ambitious reporters to focus their skills on the natural world and how it connects to politics, industry - and people. thenarwhal.bamboohr.com/careers?sour...

We've been dying to do more reporting from Brampton and Mississauga for years. So excited to announce our first Peel Reporter, and to bring @prarthanapathak.bsky.social onto the team. Send her your Peel tips!

The Local is expanding! After seven years focusing on hyper-local reporting from Toronto, we're going (very slightly) west. We're thrilled to introduce our first Peel Reporter, @prarthanapathak.bsky.social! thelocal.to/the-local-ex...

Amazing work from Richard, and more evidence that COVID drove everyone absolutely insane

Best Feature Article (Long): “Why Did a Group of Teenage Girls Kill a Man in a Downtown Toronto Parkette?” by @royinori.bsky.social. Editor: Dafna Izenberg; fact checker: Amarah Hasham-Steele; and illustrator: Alexandra Newbould. thewalrus.ca/why-did-a-gr...

“If we live in a society that tolerates injustice, if we live in a society that harms the most vulnerable and erodes their rights… What values do we have left?” thelocal.to/refugee-heal...

Love that our issue about urban wildlife got so many nominations. Especially glad to see this story, in which @royinori.bsky.social hangs out in a field in the middle of the night picking worms, get the respect it deserves