Village Media has announced its acquisition of Ontario provincial politics newsletter Queen’s Park Today, and Parliament Today, its federal counterpart. Founded in 2012 by journalist and entrepreneur Allison Smith, Queen’s Park Today is targeted at Ontario lawmakers, political staffers and insiders, while Parliament Today was launched in 2021 to cover federal politics and all things Parliament Hill. Both newsletters will now operate as part of The Trillium, Village Media’s legislative bureau at Queen’s Park, which it launched early last year. Katherine Declerq will continue her role as editor of Queen’s Park Today, in addition to taking on editorial duties at Parliament Today. Reporter Alan S. Hale will continue to write the Queen’s Park Today newsletter under The Trillium banner, while Parliament Hill reporter Palak Mangat will continue to write the Parliament Today newsletter. Allison Smith also joins Village Media as the founding editor of the soon-to-launch TorontoToday. Read more here.
Indiegraf has closed a $2.2 million seed round and secured additional funding from American social investors, the Knight Foundation. The seed round of funding was led by StandUp Ventures with participation from Coralus and Mucker Capital. CEO Erin Millar, who co-founded the publishing solutions provider for journalist entrepreneurs, alongside her sister Caitlin Havlak in 2020, said in a post to LinkedIn that the organization is on a mission to prove that local media can be good business. Indiegraf currently boasts 60 partner publisher titles under its network umbrella, including IndigiNews, Peterborough Currents and The Resolve.