From an urgent call for action for the Attiwapiskat First Nation to a series on teens and mental health, HuffPost Canada's blogs have been at the heart of our mission to highlight unique viewpoints and personal stories. They have galvanized, connected, and entertained Canadians.
Since we launched in 2011, protesters and parents, celebrities and CEOs inhabited the same online space to share ideas and debate issues with millions of readers. Some of our bloggers have reached wider prominence and accessed new opportunities because of it.
But much has changed in the digital landscape since then. When The Huffington Post started in the U.S. 14 years ago, its blogging platform revolutionized and democratized commentary. There was no Twitter or Medium. Facebook was not a giant.
Today, a plethora of platforms is available for people to write and share their honest and authentic thoughts.
This month, we will be closing our HuffPost Canada blog platform and launching two new sections: Personal and Opinion.
HuffPost Canada Personal will bring forth original, first-person stories that help Canadians see themselves in each other. We are particularly interested in experiences related to identity and relationships, but we are also unabashed suckers for a great yarn, whether they’re written by the person who lived it or reported by a HuffPost journalist.
HuffPost Canada Opinion will feature diverse writers who can reveal, examine, or debate issues that affect Canadians’ everyday lives, and who can take the discussion to another level. We want to help our readers better understand the non-stop news cycle and promote civil conversations.
The majority of these pieces will be commissioned. More to the point, these writers will be paid.
“HuffPost Canada has always been a place for people to share their voices, and will continue to be.”
While our blog platform allowed us to give space to a wide range of contributors who chose to share their stories, it also left out some underrepresented voices and talented writers with diverse experiences who could not afford the uncompensated time.
It’s no secret Canadian media is not inclusive enough. We don’t publish or promote enough opinion, stories, or profiles that truly reflect the diversity of our country. And by diversity, I mean the scope of age, geography, abilities, socio-economic status, gender, race, sexual orientation, religion and politics.
Spending more time and resources on reaching out to those underrepresented Canadians will help us deliver fresh opinion and first-person stories that stay with you.
HuffPost Canada has always been a place for people to share their voices, and will continue to be. We want you to see and hear yourself reflected in it even more than before.
Watch: Voices on HuffPost:
If you have an Opinion story or Personal experience to pitch, you can find more information here on how to contact us. And if there's a particular writer you'd like to read, or story you want to hear about, let us know in the comments.