Team

The Hoser’s Mandate

The Hoser is an independent digital media outlet that covers local news in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada.
 
The Hoser’s content is, first and foremost, based in fact and accuracy.
 
The Hoser aims to be accessible to young, racialized, and diverse people across the city, both as audience members and contributors. Accountability is embedded in our reporting work and in our community feedback.

The Hoser will publish content that will analyze systemic issues and give voice to people who are directly affected by these issues who aren’t normally interviewed in mainstream news media.

The Hoser will have a focus on investigative journalism, local news, an arts and culture section, an opinions section and a section of weekly, biweekly or monthly columns.

The Hoser will work with writers, journalists, videographers, graphic designers and photographers who are from, live in or have a deep understanding of the Greater Toronto Area.

The Hoser aims to pay their staff and contributors fairly and on time, at the same rate or better than other Canadian mainstream media institutions.

The Hoser recognizes that in order to have a varied and diverse understanding of content, its staff and contributors must also be from varied and diverse communities.

The Hoser aims to promote equality and diversity within its content and its space. 

The Hoser pledges editorial independence. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.

The Hoser strives to hold the powerful in the Greater Toronto Area accountable.  

The Hoser aims to produce participatory journalism with ethical organizations in the Greater Toronto Area and give these organizations the media representation they deserve. 

The Hoser aims to create a space for learning and education. It will hold classes about journalism, have knowledgeable speakers from varied fields and life experience, and encourage emerging journalists and writers to pitch stories to the publication.

The Hoser editors will work with and guide these new journalists and writers through the publication process, providing a space for education in journalism that does not require post secondary or mainstream media experience. These avenues are not always accessible for all emerging journalists or writers.  

The Hoser’s editorial staff will be a collective instead of a top down approach. The team will consist of a small group of diverse journalists who have varying life experience and are from different communities who are dedicated to the publication.

If a correction to an article needs to me made, The Hoser's editorial team will update the article and make our readers aware of the correction.

The Hoser pledges to disclose donations of $5000 or more for the sake of transparency.

The Hoser, like all quality publishers of original journalism, maintains a clear separation between news and advertising content.  Advertising that attempts to blur this distinction in a manner that, in The Hoser's sole judgment, confuses readers will be rejected.

Become a Hoser!
Join the community.

Board of Directors

A Roach

View Posts
Anna Bianca Roach is an investigative journalist who focuses on social movements and climate justice. They are passionate about participatory, community-driven journalism - they believe the journalism community should be a collaborative one. They love skill-sharing networks and they think a crowd-sourced, freelance approach to journalism education is a powerful tool to share power beyond journalism schools and prestigious unpaid internships. When they are not trying to meet deadlines, they can often be found dancing or trying to learn about plants and their ecosystems. They've counted Toronto among their homes since moving there in 2013, and they count themselves in the city's fabric even when they are away. You can learn more about them and see their work on their website. They/she.

Kevin Taghabon

View Posts
Kevin Taghabon is a journalist working primarily in the GTA, focusing mainly on issues of labour, police violence, and housing. He is a strong proponent of the creation of a working class press in and strengthening the connections between The Hoser and alternative media across Canada.

Maria Sarrouh

View Posts
Maria Sarrouh is a reporter at the Toronto Star covering COVID-19, health, education, social justice and culture. In 2020, she started working at Unity Health Toronto as the second wave of the pandemic began — a job that thrust her into writing stories about cutting edge COVID-19 research and other medical news. Before that, she freelanced for BlogTo and was an intern at TVO. She speaks English, French and Arabic and has strong ties to Toronto’s Arab communities.

Nasr Ahmed

View Posts
Nasr Ahmed is a union organizer and CWA Canada Associate Membership Coordinator. As a former media worker himself, Nasr strongly believes that all media workers deserve to have representation. In the face of an unstable media landscape where workers are often left to bear the brunt of media organizations "restructuring", Nasr and CWA Canada are fighting to preserve sustainable jobs in media, because we know that quality jobs mean quality journalism. Nasr is a former producer at CBC Toronto & Technical Director with the Brampton Beast of the ECHL. Nasr is also an active community organizer in Toronto."

Shannon Carranco

View Posts
Shannon Carranco is an investigative journalist in Toronto. Since 2017, Shannon has written extensively on the Far Right in Canada with the Montreal Gazette, The National Post and The Globe and Mail. She worked as an associate producer for CBC’s The Fifth Estate in 2019. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Shannon’s lived across North America, from the San Francisco Bay Area to rural Quebec. She studied Journalism and Political Science at Concordia University. In 2020 Shannon was nominated for a Digital Publishing Award for her work with the Globe and Mail, and in 2021 she and her team at The Fifth Estate won a Canadian Screen Award.

Zaid Noorsumar

View Posts
Zaid Noorsumar strives to advance the public interest through his work as a journalist and a communications professional. He has contributed to CBC, Rankandfile.ca, Vice among other Canadian and Pakistani media outlets. His reporting has investigated labour issues across multiple sectors, with a recent focus on long-term care and healthcare.

Contributors

Abhya Adlakha

View Posts
Abhya Adlakha is a freelance writer from Toronto, whose topics of interest are crime, politics, and breaking news. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star and The Varsity.

Adam Chen

View Posts
Adam Chen is the founder of Talk Media, a journalism events company that creates storytelling experiences that bring audiences together through a shared genuine curiosity. Adam was born and raised in the 'burbs of Scarborough and his work has been published in HuffPost, BuzzFeed, Greencamp, the RRJ and The Hoser.

Amy Cunningham

View Posts
Amy Cunningham is a Toronto-based, plant-based comedian, writer and storyteller. Her dark and deadpan comedy has been featured at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Oddblock Comedy Festival, SheDot Festival and others. Her award-winning series, Off Kilter, was called "a refreshing surprise" by The New York Times, and is available to stream on the CBC’s digital platform as well as Seed&Spark in the US. She writes satirical pieces for several national, Canadian comedy websites and was a winner of the Independent Production Fund’s web drama grant.

Andrew Oliphant

View Posts
Andrew is a youth worker and freelance journalist currently based in Toronto. As recent master of journalism graduate from TMU, Andrew has written for publications like This Magazine and Toronto Life. He works as a youth worker at Eastview Community Centre in Toronto’s East End.

Dana Masa

View Posts
Dana Masa is a journalism student at R*erson University with a strong interest in politics, fashion and food. She is originally of Palestinian descent and lives in the Greater Toronto Area. She speaks both English and Arabic (and a little bit of French).

David Alton

View Posts
David (they/them) is a community facilitator and grassroots organizer in Waterloo Region. Currently they are supporting grassroots groups like the Unsheltered Campaign and GroundUpWR to amplify calls to action coming from marginalized communities. They also work at the Social Development Centre of Waterloo Region building bridges between lived experts and institutions.

Eric Wickham

View Posts
Eric Wickham is a Toronto-based journalist, podcaster, and former radio producer. Wickham is co-host and producer of Big Shiny Takes, featured on the Harbinger Media Network.

Fernando Arce

View Posts
Fernando Arce, born and raised in Ecuador, is a Toronto-based independent multimedia journalist, an active NCM-CAJ member and mentor. His work is devoted to amplifying the voices of the grassroots and working classes as well as those of Indigenous Peoples resisting colonialism. He has written in both English and Spanish from across Canada, Venezuela, Mexico and Ecuador. He has a BA in Political Science from York University and an MA in Journalism from Western University.

Ian Wilms

View Posts
Ian Willms is a post-documentary photographer and member of Panos Pictures. As a freelance photojournalist, Ian has contributed to National Geographic, The New York Times, TIME, GEO, New York Magazine, The Guardian Weekly and many others throughout the last decade. Ian's ancestors fled violent persecution in Russia before settling in Canada, where Ian grew up in a subsidized apartment building for at-risk women.

Jacob Pesaruk

View Posts
Jake Pesaruk is a writer from Alberta who has always looked for the crucial components of what makes a story tick. Using every tool he has at his disposal, he applies an investigative approach to get to the marrow of each subject, making sure no breadcrumbs are missed. You can find his work in Filter, Vice and Canadian Dimension.

John Clarke

View Posts
John Clarke is a long time community organizer who spent 28 years working with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

Kiernan Green

View Posts
Kiernan Green is a Canadian journalist currently based in Toronto. He's previously worked as a regional reporter in Victoria, B.C. and Humboldt, SK, where he reported on provincial politics, local economy, climate innovation and social issues. Kiernan graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Journalism in 2021 with minors in global politics and modern history.

Laura Proctor

View Posts
Laura Proctor is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer in Toronto. She works in both longer-form documentary storytelling and daily news. Her work has been published in AARP, Canada’s National Observer, and The Hoser. Laura grew up in a small village outside of Orillia, where she first fell in love with photography. She is entirely self-taught. In August 2020, a photo of Laura’s was chosen to be exhibited in International Center of Photography’s 2020 exhibition in New York City, #ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis. The exhibition has now been published as a book.

Leah Borts-Kuperman

View Posts
Leah is a journalist, editor, and producer in the GTA. Her work has been featured by the CBC, Opera Canada, and The Dance Current.

Megan DeLaire

View Posts
Megan DeLaire is a freelance journalist interested in stories about climate and social issues. She runs on podcasts, coffee and cheese. In past lives, she worked in newsrooms in Toronto and Ottawa.

Nick Lachance

View Posts
Nick Lachance is an award winning freelance photojournalist and writer living in Toronto. Throughout his career he has worked for large and small publications covering, municipal, provincial and national elections, shooting spot news, making portraits, and covering large events like the G20 riots in 2010, and the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. He has been a staff photographer with NOW magazine and his image have appeared in numerous publications including The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Hoser, Xtra magazine, and internationally through Reuters.

Rhea Singh

View Posts
Rhea Singh is a Toronto-based writer, with a background in reporting on queer subculture, fashion and social movements in the city. Previously, she has written for publications Xtra, Liminul and has worked alongside The Walrus's digital team.

Simon Orpana

View Posts
Simon Orpana is an artist and educator who uses comics to explore social, political and historical realities. His writing has appeared in collections such as Zombie Theory: A Reader and in journals such as TOPIA. With Rob Kristofferson he made Showdown! Making Modern Unions, a graphic history of the role Hamilton workers played in establishing industrial unionism in Canada. His new book, Gasoline Dreams: Waking Up from Petroculture, a graphic narrative exploring the cultural barriers to more just and equitable relationships to energy, will be available from Fordham University Press in September 2021. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

Let's Get in Touch.

Have a question, comment or query? We love getting feedback from our community. If you’ve got a pitch, let us know! Keep it under 200 words and make sure it’s relevant to our mandate.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Mail Address

editor@thehoser.ca

Follow