In the 'Building of Lost Causes,' I learned how independent journalism survives

This piece first appeared in the Harvard Nieman Lab's annual Predictions for Journalism series, where industry leaders share their insights about the future of journalism. We're sharing it here because our readers, who've been essential to Canada National Observer's journey, deserve to know their role in building something that has become a model for independent journalism. Linda Solomon Wood is the founder and publisher of Canada's National Observer.

Ten years ago, in Vancouver's oldest office building, a few colleagues and I launched what seemed like an impossible venture: a digital newspaper that would stand up to one of the most powerful forces on earth - the oil and gas industry. We funded National Observer through crowdfunding and a handful of "social impact" investors who knew they might never see a return beyond social good. In one of North America's least affordable cities, we found an affordable space in a building we came to call The Save the World Building - or, on darker days, The Building of Lost Causes. The names captured both our ambition and our doubt. We were attempting something unprecedented in resource-rich Canada: building the country's first progressive national digital newspaper while providing critical coverage of an industry that seemed untouchable. The path ahead was uncharted, but we took the first step anyway.

The stakes felt impossibly high as we investigated the oil sands' health hazards, followed Archbishop Desmond Tutu's prophetic flyover of the oil patch, and exposed a broken regulatory system. Our newsroom was unique in the building - we were journalists, not activists, though the offices around us were filled with environmental and social justice organizations. During fire drills, laughter would fill the stairwell, turning evacuation into impromptu celebration. When the alarms stopped, a different atmosphere would settle: the quiet of serious work, as we returned to our investigation of power, greed and environmental degradation. The day we launched our Kickstarter campaign, we took photos of ourselves - journalists laughing together while embarking on something untested.

You can see by our smiles how much fun this all could be. What you don't see is the grind, how often it felt like we were on a hike up a mountain where the peak is always moving away from you, always in the distance. For us, arrival meant sustainability. Sustainability meant predictability. Predictability meant recurring revenue. That meant convincing thousands of people to donate. Soon, I became exhausted from crowdfunding. The stress of those one-month campaigns was overwhelming. Hitting our goals brought elation - especially when we exceeded them. But soon enough, the cycle would begin again. We established a paywall, working elbow to elbow toward our holy grail: 10,000 paying subscribers written large on our whiteboard wall.

Next door to our office, a woman lived illegally with her dozen cats, their smell wafting through our walls. We countered the stress of lawsuit threats with black humor as we exposed the government's ties to international fossil fuel conglomerates. After our 2015 launch, the industry's response was swift: coordinated trolling campaigns targeted our journalists on Twitter. We published story after story: federal spies monitoring citizens in church basements for protesting pipelines, Alberta's government covering up health threats downstream from the oil sands. Bill McKibben had called Canada's tar sands "the fuse of the carbon bomb." In The Save the World Building, we watched it detonate.

When the Liberal government took power, our focus shifted from the energy industry to climate change. Then I hit a wall. I sat at my desk one day and stared at devastating numbers. Outside my door, two talented reporters discussed their next story, unaware that we were heading off a cliff. At the same time, my mother-in-law was dying.

That afternoon, my husband and I drove through the Okanagan to join the family vigil at his mother's bedside. For seven days, I tried to push the spreadsheets from my mind, but the numbers followed me there. After her death, I collapsed. At home, buried under covers, I sobbed - certain that the National Observer was dying too. For the first time in our journey from hyper-local to national publication, I had no fight left. I reached out to advisory board members about bankruptcy, a word that had always terrified me.

A wonderful man on my advisory board who had built and sold a technology company, had this to say when I told him how bad things were.  "Every founder comes to this moment when they feel all is lost," he said. "It's just a stage. So, here's what you need to do. Roll up your sleeves. Let's get to work. I'm going to be with you every day until you get through this." He helped me round up enough new investment to get us through until a few new contracts would close, the most significant of which was a subscription deal with the Government of Canada.

That was years ago but I tell this story now because the Save the World Building seems like such a good metaphor for what we are facing as we come to the end of 2024. In 2016, we at National Observer faced what seemed impossible: building independent journalism when fossil fuel interests dominated every institution, our government was spying on citizens in church basements, and traditional media was failing.

We learned to create stability while working from a building that could collapse in an earthquake at any moment - a building full of people working on causes that had the potential to bring about real and positive changes, but that could also feel impossible to achieve.

Now, as we enter 2024 with democracy feeling as shaky as that old structure, I return to those lessons. Not as a formula - there are no easy answers - but as evidence that even in a building of big dreams and lost causes, small groups of determined people can build something that lasts. The skills we developed while facing down the fossil fuel industry – persistence through trolling campaigns, converting readers one by one, turning an upstart publication into essential reading – these aren't just about journalism. They're about how to keep building when everything around you feels like it's crumbling.

Recently, in New York City, I heard journalists describe their paralysis about democracy's future in words I remember all too well: resigned, depressed, helpless, overwhelmed. "I know there's nothing I can really do about it," they said - the same words that caused me to lose faith in myself as I'd trudged up the sharp spiral staircase in Vancouver's oldest office building. I've learned so much in the ten years I’ve led the evolution of Canada’s National Observer. When I hear people talk about giving up now, I remember my own paralysis back then. But I also remember how things shifted and how far we have come since then. When the numbers looked impossible, when trolls flooded our mentions, when the future looked bleak - you get granular. You bear down on your beat. You focus on the next investigation. You find the next subscriber, the next funder, the next nation-rocking revelation. You build your journalistic reach story by story, even when the ground beneath you could shift at any moment. You roll up your sleeves.

None of this would have been possible without the vision of more than 20 Canadian foundations who recognized that journalism plays a critical role in the climate crisis. Working in collaboration with our fiscal partner, the Institute of Sustainability, Education and Action, we've developed contractual relationships that maintain our full editorial independence while ensuring sustainable funding. Together with our subscribers and individual donors, they've helped us build a diverse revenue model: 40% from contracts, 40% from reader revenue, and 20% from government grants and subsidies. These collaborations have proved that when the stakes are high enough, traditional funding models can evolve to meet the moment. More importantly, they showed that rigorous journalism can maintain its independence while collaborating with mission-aligned organizations and individuals who understand that investigating environmental threats and documenting climate solutions isn't just journalism - it's essential infrastructure for an informed democracy.

I've seen what it takes to build something that survives in this industry - from our laughing Kickstarter photos to the moment I collapsed in tears, certain National Observer was dying. 

And now, having built a newsroom that forced governments to confront oil sands health hazards and exposed federal spies in church basements, here's what I predict: The newsrooms that make it through 2024 will be the ones who've learned to live in contradiction - to keep pursuing devastating stories while wrestling with devastating numbers. They'll master what we learned in that old Vancouver building: how to simultaneously track international fossil fuel conglomerates and build a relationship with the next subscriber. How to expose government coverups and highlight climate solutions while securing government contracts. How to build something lasting while the ground shifts beneath you. 

Ten years ago, in a building of lost causes, we proved that what seems impossible becomes inevitable not through noble intentions, but through sheer persistence. As democracy faces its own stress test, that lesson matters more than ever: The future belongs to those who refuse to give up.

image created with Dall E by the author.